Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, was reportedly arrested at an airport near Paris on August 24.

The news was picked up and shared so fast by so many outlets that it's hard to know where it started, but it seems French newspaper Le Monde was among the first, if not the first, to break the story, and confirmed Durov's jet had landed at Le Bourget airport, north of Paris, from Azerbaijan.

Further, a Bloomberg report pointed out that that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also confirmed this on Telegram.

Why was he arrested?

According to multiple sources, Durov was arrested because he (reportedly) repeatedly refused to censor content on Telegram, and refused to collaborate with French authorities.

Multiple sources further note that Durov has apparently refused to do so even in case of illegal content, including channels promoting sales of narcotics as well as p**o material.

It's very important to point out that all of the above is 'alleged', none of that is confirmed, for now, one way or another.

Durov's relation with France

After the arrest, several news outlets pointed out that Durov was apparently considered PNG, Persona Non Grata, in France.

As a personal note, I would say that sounds odd. A, because Durov is also a French citizen, and B, because if that's the case, why would he have landed in France?

Durov's relation with Russia

Durov has lived on 'self-imposed exile' since 2014.

Durov has clashed several times with the Russian government, on a variety of occasions, but the key recurring theme was he always said no whenever they asked him to either censor content, or shut down channels, or share data.

In 2018, Russia banned Telegram but the ban was lifted in 2020.

According to some reports, some high-profile members of the Russian government have asked Durov to come back to Russia as he was not safe in EU countries.

Impact on TON

Toncoin (TON) was trading at around $6.8 but plummeted to around $5.5 when the news broke.

At the time of writing, TON is trading at $5.47.

On CoinMarketCap, community sentiment is 54 percent negative.

Conclusion

Very little of what has been said or written is set in stone and confirmed beyond doubt as of today, so it's difficult to draw conclusions.

I still don't know enough to have developed an opinion on this.

I do use Telegram, and do I hold TON, although not much since it's just what I've received with the ongoing BNB airdrop via Launchpool.