Who is Pavel Durov, the Telegram CEO arrested in France? #PavelDurov , the Russian-born founder of the Telegram encrypted messaging app, was arrested at a French airport Saturday evening. The billionaire co-founder of Telegram Group Inc., who is 39-years-old, had been traveling abroad on his private jet from Azerbaijan and was arrested at Paris's Bourget airport following a French warrant for his arrest issued while he was in flight. The entrepreneur lives in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where Telegram is based, and holds citizenship in four countries: Russia, St. Kitts and Nevis (an island country in the Caribbean Sea), France, and the UAE, according to media reports. Durov left Russia in 2014. The 39-year-old is believed to have a net worth of $15.5 billion, according to Forbes. Durov co-founded Telegram, which has about 900 million active users, with his brother in 2013. The US government has pressured Durov to allow a "backdoor" in the app for Western intelligence, the CEO told US journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this year. However the entrepreneur has maintained that #Telegram should remain a “neutral platform” that is not a “player in geopolitics.” #FreeDUROV