Although he had been under pressure from the Russian government for years, people in his home country protested his arrest in Paris.
The founder and CEO of Telegram , Pavel Durov (39 years old), was arrested in France after his private plane landed at Le Bourget airport in Paris.
This happened on Saturday, August 24, 2024, and according to authorities, His arrest was due to charges related to the dissemination of illicit material on his encrypted messaging app. which he created with his brother Nikolai Durov in 2013.
Due to his wealth, age and business success in technology, Pavel Durov has been dubbed by some as “the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia » .
Before launching Telegram, I had developed a social network call VKontakte (VK) launched in 2006 and presented as a Russian alternative to Facebook.
However, For years he has been under pressure from the government which led him to sell the said company.
With Telegram, he also managed to position himself and awaken antibodies in the Kremlin .
The application has over 900 million users he declared at the beginning of 2024.
It is estimated that Durov’s net worth is around $15.5 billion according to the data retrieved by Forbes .
This magazine specializing in business and finance places it at 120th place on the billionaires list of the world.
But Durov’s journey has been eventful. .
The accused he was confronted with by the ruling party contributed to him leaving his native country in 2014 since he subsequently applied for French and United Arab Emirates citizenship.
He currently resides in Dubai and Although he received several offers to acquire his company, he rejected them. .
The Story of Pavel Durov, the Billionaire Founder of Telegram
Born October 10, 1984 in Leningrad today Saint Petersburg (Russia).
As reported by the Bbc Since he was little, he attended the St. Petersburg Academic Gymnasium, a school known for excel in science and mathematics .
After finishing school, studied philology at St. Petersburg State University according to the rescue The country .
During his student period, stood out for its good performance and designed several web pages for students to exchange notes and discuss academic issues.
Already in 2006 he developed VKontakte with his brother Nicolai and his colleague Ilia Perekopski.
However, the social network has become a point of interest for the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Over time, the Russian authorities They pressured him to provide personal data of some users .
Along with this, They demanded that he close down opposition communities to the Kremlin on its platform.
Durov refused and during this period he worked on the development of Telegram then released the app in 2013.
In the midst of this complex scenario, He chose to leave Russia in 2014 and sold his VKontakte shares for about $300 million.
The purchase was made by a business group close to the Kremlin called Mail.ru.
According to statements retrieved by the aforementioned media, he then declared: “It is impossible to run an Internet business in this country” .
One of the most controversial moments he starred in during those years was when, andIn 2012, he threw banknotes to pedestrians from VK’s headquarters in St. Petersburg. which started a fight.
But His departure from the country and the sale of the social network did not mean the end of the crossings with the Russian government.
Between 2018 and 2020, Telegram was banned in the territory because the company refused to hand over its encryption keys to the FSB.
With this information, the authorities could have access to users’ messaging data .
His argument was that They were trying to prevent attacks terrorists.
But after the company’s refusal and these years of prohibition, they reached an agreement to operate again if they transmitted information about users that threatened national security.
It is good to remember that The Kremlin considers “extremist organizations” from the LGBT movement to multiple groups as critical. with the ruling party.
Durov’s greatest creation, Telegram positions itself as a pioneering social network in the field of encrypted messaging.
And although it is mainly popular in the countries of the former Soviet Union, the platform It has many users in different parts of the world .
Since its creation, the application She presents herself as a defender of individual freedoms, an opponent of censorship and a protector of confidentiality. according to Tutor .
American academic Douglas C. Youvan Pavel Durov describes as follows in his writing The Russian Jesus: A Beacon of Digital Freedom in the Age of Surveillance .
“He has earned a reputation for asceticism and discipline that extends beyond his professional accomplishments. He is known for his minimalist lifestyle, abstaining from alcohol, caffeine and processed foods, and Adhere to a rigorous personal regimen focused on mental clarity and physical health “.
On his official Instagram account you can see several photographs in which he shows his bare torso .
The Forbes profile of the businessman details that He has five children he shares with two ex-girlfriends and has said he has donated sperm for the birth of around 100 children. .
Unlike other people who have had conflicts with the Kremlin, Durov enjoys protection of Russian government expert Dmytro Zolotukhin told the BBC.
In this sense, he explained after the recent arrest that “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Duma (parliament) and deputies are defending Durov, as well as the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which is an official co-owner of Telegram.” .
After the tycoon’s arrest was reported in Paris, the Russian Embassy in France shared a statement in which They said they were trying to “clarify the reasons for the detention and ensure the protection of Durov’s rights, as well as facilitate consular access.” .
In addition, They accused the French authorities of not cooperating with its officials.
Similarly, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: He wondered via Telegram whether Western human rights organizations would remain silent. for his arrest.
With such statements He referred to the criticism Russia faced in 2018. the year the social network ban began in the country.
Source: Latercera
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
