(Image source from: Instagram.com/durov)
The 39 years old Russian born billionaire is the Chief executive officer of Telegram, Pavel Durov was reportedly arrested at an airport outside Paris on Saturday night. He is currently under arrest and is alleged for misuse of his social media platform Telegram for criminal activities.
Pavel Durov has an estimated worth of approximately $ 15.5 billion. In 2006 he began VKontakte in Russia, a Facebook version. Soon the app turned out to be the largest social networking site in the country. In 2014, Pavel Durov left Russia by shutting down his operations. He sold his stake in 2013 and later launched Telegram after coming out from Russia.
Surprisingly Telegram runs with only 30 employees even now and also runs no ads. Once he also passed a statement “To be truly free you should risk everything for freedom” . He might now face jail up to 20 years for charges of money laundering, fraud, sanctions and also for terrorism. Governments are against him only because of his lack of moderation and cooperation with law enforcement. Telegram also allows crypto currency transfers. It’s only the social media platform where we get unfiltered information even about the wars. From app stores if we download it has restrictions, but only if we download from the direct website we will not have restrictions while using the app. Encrypted messages can only be accessible to the person with a key, no one can check those messages even if they have access over the phone.
Telegram is now one of the fastest growing apps with millions of users. He is likely to reach one billion monthly active users. His apps are mostly popular in Soviet countries like Russia and Ukraine. In 2018, Russia banned the Telegram app after it refused to access the state security for the user's encrypted messages. Pavel Durov left Russia and landed in Dubai, but soon obtained French citizenship. As per sources he is also obtaining citizenship in the United Arab Emirates.
He was called the Russian Zuckerberg. He is a shy person and rarely gives interviews. He was targeted for offences conducted on telegram, ranging towards huge drug trafficking, cyber cyberbullying bullying and organised crimes, like terrorism. When he was arrested before landing in Azerbaijan. Yulia Vavilova, who is believed to be his girlfriend, was also arrested. Reports also claim that she is the reason behind his arrest. She was spotted with Pavel on many occasions and also kept posting his private jet or travel photos on her instagram. He also claims that he is a father of 100 biological children.
Durov also got support from Elon Musk. Described the incident as an attack on free speech. He has demanded justice for Durov through his social media posts. American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy says today it's Telegram and tomorrow it will be X and Elon Musk comes in support of this statement.
