Pavel Durov, billionaire co-founder and chief executive of Telegram, a top-flight messaging app, has been charged by the French judiciary for allegedly allowing criminal activities like illicit content, drug trafficking and fraud on the app. However, he was able to avoid jail by paying a €5m bail.
Durov was granted release on condition that he report to a police station twice a week and remain in France, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
The charges against Durov include complicity in the spread of sexual images of children and suspicion of failing to act against illicit content on the service, drug trafficking and fraud.
The 39-year-old is understood to have been travelling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at about 8pm local time (6pm GMT).
The Russia-born entrepreneur lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based, and holds dual citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates.
Durov, who is estimated by Forbes to have a fortune of $15.5bn (£12bn), left Russia in 2014 after he refused to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he sold.
Russia’s embassy in France is taking “immediate steps” to step into the situation. Citing a representative from the Russian embassy in France, TASS reported there had been no appeal from Durov’s team to the embassy, but that it was proactively taking “immediate” steps to diffuse rising tension.