Benjamin Rich, a British YouTube sensation, was detained at the Baikonur Cosmodrome

British YouTube travel blogger Benjamin Rich, who specialises in distant and often hazardous regions of the world, was detained at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome on Saturday, according to the president of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos.

Rich, whose Bald and Bankrupt channel has 3.53 million followers, and Alina Tseliupa were seized near one of the launch pads at Baikonur, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan, said Dmitry Rogozin in an online post.

According to Rogozin, who uploaded photographs of Rich’s visa and Tseliupa’s passport, local officials were establishing “the exact extent of engagement in unlawful operations” by the two. Alina appears in several of Rich’s films, although it was unclear whether she and Tseliupa were the same person.

The foreign ministry in London did not respond immediately.

Baikonur, a once-closed Soviet city, is now available to travellers who apply to Roscosmos. It is located in the steppe about 1,100 kilometres (680 miles) southwest of the Kazakh city of Nur-Sultan.