Telegram CEO and founder Pavel Durov, who was arrested overnight in France, previously told American journalist Tucker Carlson that he got “too much attention” from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies while on US soil.
In an interview released in April, several months prior to the Russian tech mogul’s arrest in France, he claimed that US agencies had tried to recruit Telegram employees and convince them to create a 'backdoor' into the messenger.
The billionaire was arrested by French authorities in a Paris airport on Saturday, reportedly on charges related to his alleged complicity in fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, and promoting terrorism. However, Ekaterina Mizulina, the head of Russia’s Safe Internet League, has suggested that France was acting at the behest of the United States.
WATCH what Durov told Carlson about his life in the US: