(crimerussia) -- Foreign security officials became interested in Durov in 2014, when he sold his stake in VKontakte and left Russia, RBC reports. According to him, FBI agents began to question the businessman about work during the border crossing. They were interested in whether Pavel Durov had to cooperate with the Russian authorities and fulfill their demands, including providing information about users.

"I did not like these questions," he stressed. "I did not want to become an American mole, so I just gave them a minimum of information that had already been published in the media before."

During subsequent trips, the special services questioned Durov about working on Telegram and learned how to contact the businessman in the future. He gave them an email address and they began to send letters with a help proposal.

Pavel Durov described one case when he flew to San Francisco for the annual Google I/O conference. In an apartment he rented through Airbnb came two agents of the FBI and began to ask questions about Telegram, showing a court order. They were interested in information about specific users of the messenger, which may be needed in the event of a terrorist threat. The officers insisted that he create an informal channel for the exchange of information with them: "We respect your position regarding confidentiality and cryptography and what you are trying to do. But in the world there is terrorism, this is a serious problem, and we must protect society. We hope you understand and endorse our point of view."

The businessman convinced that the court decision was false, since Telegram does not have an official representation in the US, and the messenger servers are only partially in the States. As a result, he promised to respond to the FBI after his lawyers would examine the judicial document. Also, according to Durov, he was "interrogated by the guys from the FSB" who "did not impress him", as they were not sufficiently qualified. FBI agents on the contrary surprised the programmer: "They were professionals. And I realized that the US has so many security resources that it's simply scary."

He also mentioned that the US intelligence services tried to bribe one of the developers of Telegram, offering him "about ten thousand dollars" for creating a confidential channel in secret from Durov, through which he will transfer the necessary data to them. But the expert admitted to the founder of the messenger in his contacts with the FBI.