Pavel Durov, the set uper and CEO of social messaging app Telegram, has been apexhibited to fly home to Dubai as French authorities persist their unpretreatnted case agetst him.
The tech billionaire was arrested in August after being accengaged of fall shorting to properly temperate his app to shrink criminality.
Mr Durov denies fall shorting to corun with law applyment over drug illicit trade, child relationsual mistreatment satisfied and deception. Telegram has previously denied having inadequate moderation.
It is the first time a tech directer has been arrested for criminality taking place on their platestablish.
Mr Durov shelp in a post on his Telegram channel: “The process is ongoing but it experiences fantastic to be home.”
The 40-year-better was arrested in August 2024 as he get tod in Paris on his personal jet, and French appraises initiassociate did not apexhibit him to exit France.
But in a statement on Monday, the French court shelp “the obligations of judicial supervision” had been suspfinished between 15 March and 7 April.
No further details were given about the conditions of his free from France.
Mr Durov inhabits in Dubai and was born in Russia, where he has citizenship, as well as in France, the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island nation of St Kitts and Nevis.
Telegram is particularly well-comprehendn in Russia, Ukraine and establisher Soviet Union states as well as Iran.
Telegram is engaged by around 950 million people worldexpansive and has previously positioned itself as an app cgo insed on its engagers’ privacy, rather than the standard policies prioritised by other global social media companies.
But inestablishing from the BBC and other novels organisations highweightlessed criminals using the app to publicize substances as well as provide cybercrime and deception services and, most recently, child relationsual mistreatment material.
It led one expert to brand it “the depressed web in your pocket“.
The firm has previously shelp his arrest is unequitable, and he should not be held liable for what engagers do on the platestablish.
From his home in Dubai, Mr Durov thanked the French appraises for letting him go home.
He also thanked his lawyers for their “relentless efforts in demonstrating that, when it comes to moderation, cooperation, and battling crime, for years Telegram not only met but outdoed its lhorrible obligations”.
However, since the arrest, Telegram has made a series of alters to the way it runs.
It has joined the Internet Watch Foundation Link programme, which aims to help discover, delete and inestablish child relationsual mistreatment material being scatterd online.
It has also proclaimd IP insertresses and phone numbers of those who viotardy its rules will be handed over to police in response to valid lhorrible asks.
And it has begined transparency inestablishs about how much satisfied is consentn down – a standard industry train it had previously declined to adhere with.
