Telegram founder Pavel Durov was released from police custody in France on Wednesday and taken to court for questioning pending possible charges, prosecutors told CNN, days after his dramatic arrest at a Paris airport.
The Russian-born billionaire left the anti-fraud office outside Paris on Wednesday afternoon in what appeared to be a police car, a CNN producer at the scene said.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said he would now undergo “an initial questioning and possible charges” at a court in the French capital.
Durov, 39, was detained Saturday at Paris’ Bourget airport on a warrant related to Telegram’s lack of moderation. He was being investigated over allegations relating to a range of crimes, including allegations that his platform was complicit in helping fraudsters, drug traffickers and people who distributed child pornography.
Durov’s app and the lack of moderation of its content have also come under criticism due to its use by terrorist groups and far-right extremists.
He was held for up to 96 hours, the maximum time a person can be held under French law before being charged.
Durov’s arrest sparked a row over freedom of expression and caused, in particular, concerns in both Ukraine and Russiawhere it is extremely popular and has become an important means of communication between military personnel and civilians during Moscow’s war against its neighbor.
The Kremlin has tried to calm fears in Russia over the future of the app, with Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov attempting to debunk calls for users to delete their confidential messages on the app.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that the decision to charge Durov was “in no way political,” a rare intervention by a French leader in a legal matter.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai. The app now has more than 950 million users, according to a post by Durov last month, making it one of the most widely used messaging platforms in the world.
Conversations on the app are encrypted, meaning law enforcement agencies – and Telegram itself – have little oversight over what users post.
Born in the Soviet Union in 1984, Durov was popularly dubbed the “Mark Zuckerberg of Russia” in his 20s. He left the country in 2014 and now lives in Dubai, where Telegram is headquartered, while also holding French citizenship.
His net worth is estimated at $9.15 billion, according to Bloombergand has maintained a lavish, globetrotting lifestyle for the past decade.
But while his app has won praise from free speech groups and has enabled private communications in restrictive countries, critics say it has become a safe haven for people coordinating illegal activities, including the terrorists who planned the Paris attacks. November 2015.
“You can’t make it safe for criminals and open for governments,” Durov told CNN in 2016. “It’s either safe or it’s not safe.”
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