Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov delivers his keynote conference during day two of the Mobile World Congress at the Fira Gran Via complex in Barcelona, Spain on February 23, 2016. The annual Mobile World Congress hosts some of the world's largest communication companies, the show runs from the 22 to 25 February. Photo by Manuel Blondeau/AOP.Press/Corbis (Photo by AOP.Press/Corbis via Getty Images)
Pavel Durov, the billionaire CEO and founder of messaging app Telegram who was arrested in France on Saturday, is also a suspect in a criminal case in Switzerland, Forbes has learned. The case was filed by his former partner Irina Bolgar, who claims to have three children with Durov. The criminal complaint in Geneva, filed in March 2023, alleges that Durov was physically violent towards one of his three children. Bolgar filed a civil child custody case shortly after; both cases were submitted a few months after Bolgar alleges Durov stopped paying her 150,000 euros ($167,500) per month in child support, court filings say.
The Geneva Court of Justice initially refused to enter the criminal complaint against Durov when it received it because it had been filed more than three months after the most recent instance of alleged physical violence. In May 2023, Bolgar appealed, and the court allowed the case to move forward last October. The case—which is ongoing, according to a Geneva court official—alleges that Durov harmed his youngest son, born in September 2017, five times between 2021 and 2022. The incidents allegedly resulted in injuries including a concussion and sleep disorders; transcripts of messages purportedly exchanged by Bolgar and Durov in November 2021 in Paris were entered as evidence, as was a medical certificate from April 2023 attesting that the child continued to suffer from........