In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron offered Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram platform, to move the company’s headquarters to Paris, the newspaper “Wall Street Journal”, citing sources.
The offer was made on the occasion of a birthday. Durov refused the offer.
The French leader also discussed the possibility of granting Durov French citizenship.
Although Durov rejected Macron’s offer, the founder of “Telegram” still received French citizenship in 2021.
A year before that meeting, French intelligence cooperated with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which led to the hacking of Durov’s iPhone, people familiar with the matter said.
This spy work, which has not been publicly known before, was called “Purple Music”.
French security officials are very concerned that the Islamic State terrorist group is using Telegram to recruit fighters and plan attacks.
According to a person close to Durov, the company has ignored law enforcement and court subpoenas for years.
They have accumulated in a company email address that is rarely checked.
“While there is no indication that the earlier conversations with Macron or the hacking of Durov’s phone played any part in his arrest, these details shed light on the long and complicated relationship “Durov’s relationship with France and the UAE,” the newspaper said.
Durov founded Telegram in 2013 after his first project, the Russian social network VKontakte (VK), ran into problems that he blamed on the Kremlin. He left Russia in 2014.
Telegram is popular, in part because of how easy it is to watch and post videos on its messaging channels.
But critics claim it often hosts illegal content, from extreme sexual images, pornography and even drug-buying services.
The founder of “Telegram” was detained at the Paris Le Bourget airport on Saturday when he arrived on a private plane from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
Durov is accused of failing to take steps to limit the criminal use of his platform.
The Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Tuesday that the investigating judge will extend Durov’s detention to 48 hours on Monday night. Authorities must then release him or face charges, the prosecutor’s office said in an earlier statement.
2024-08-28 18:36:42
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