PARIS, August 29. /TASS/. Telegram founder Pavel Durov asked the police to notify French businessman Xavier Niel, head of the Iliad telecommunications group board of directors, about his detention after the police apprehended him on August 24, AFP reported.

According to the report, Xavier Niel is close to French President Emmanuel Macron.

Previously, the Le Monde newspaper, co-owned by Niel, reported citing sources close the French president that the information about the planned meeting between Macron and Durov in the Elysee Palace on the day of Durov’s arrival is false. According to the report, on that day, Macron was not in Paris, but in his family residence in Pas-de-Calais in northern France.

Durov was detained in the Le Bourget airport on August 24. On the next day, his custody period was prolonged up to 96 hours. On August 28, his preliminary custody was over, the entrepreneur was delivered to a court, where the prosecutor charged Durov with six offences, which include complicity in administration of an online platform that enabled illegal transactions within, committed within a criminal group. Such offence may carry imprisonment of up to 10 years and a fine of 500,000 euros.