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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Chris Stokel-Walker

Arresting Telegram’s Pavel Durov could be a smart move. Tech bosses care more about themselves than you

Illustration featuring a portrait of Pavel Durov.
‘Pavel Durov’s arrest is a sign that the EU is perhaps starting to talk the talk.’ Composite: Guardian/Getty Images

The shock arrest of Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov as he stepped off his private jet in the Bourget airport near Paris over the weekend is a startling, unprecedented event: he faces alleged offences that could include enabling fraud, drug trafficking, organised crime, promotion of terrorism and cyberbullying.

He may not be an Elon Musk or a Mark Zuckerberg, but he is the CEO of a tech platform with 950 million monthly users, and is the first big name in tech to find himself potentially on the wrong side of the European Union’s increasingly strict laws and regulations in the digital sphere.

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