24-year-old Juli Vavilova, who is a video game streamer and self-proclaimed "crypto coach," shared a series of photos to social media that seemingly showed her traveling to Azerbaijan last week with Durov. French security researcher Baptiste Robert compiled a series of the posts and evidence that the pair were traveling together, which online sleuths say also revealed their movements prior to Durov's arrest.
“It’s complicated to say if her posts played a direct role in his arrest, but if you were following her on social media, you could easily track Durov’s movements,” Robert told the New York Post.
Vavilova's family says they have been unable to contact her since Saturday. The relationship between her and the tech mogul remains unclear, but both currently live in Dubai in the UAE. Durov has taken residence and moved Telegram's headquarters there since he fled Russia in 2014 after refusing to hand over encrypted data from his platform to the Kremlin.
Telegram said in a statement that Durov was not hiding or on the run and would regularly travel to Europe. He was served an arrest warrant as soon as he landed at the French Le Bourget airport at 8 pm local time on Saturday. On Monday, he was formally charged with 12 offenses including complicity in the possession and distribution of child pornography and drugs and money laundering, all related to private messages that occurred on his platform.
Durov faces 20 years in prison. His arrest has spurred global outrage and French President Emmanuel Macron has insisted his detainment is "in no way a political decision."
