US-funded ‘Atlantic Council’ targeted telegram 2 months before Durov’s arrest

French authorities arrested Russian-born dual UAE-French citizen Pavel Durov over the weekend as he stepped off his private jet in Paris. Durov, who is the CEO and founder of popular messaging app Telegram, faces a number of serious charges from French authorities, ranging from drug offences to child sexual exploitation.

Of course, none of the charges directly relate to Durov, but rather refer to activity that allegedly took place on Telegram, Durov’s privacy-focused messaging app with nearly 1 billion active users. The charging documents do not specify what exactly French authorities are alleging about Durov’s guilt, and French President Emmanuel Macron took to X (formerly Twitter) to assure the public that the arrest was not “political.”

Nevertheless, it is extremely unlikely that Durov’s arrest would have occurred independently of Durov’s known refusals to cooperate with censorship and law enforcement requests from intelligence agencies. Moreover, it is inconceivable that Durov’s arrest would have occurred without the prior knowledge and implicit approval, if not direct complicity and insistence, of the U.S. government.

There are even reliable reports that Macron himself lured Durov in order to arrest him, as Durov allegedly told French authorities that he had traveled to Paris at Macron’s invitation to dine with the French president. Strange indeed.

Suspicions about the timing and possible US complicity in Durov’s arrest are fueled by a DFR Lab-sponsored conference that criticized Telegram’s refusal to censor information related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.