Kim DotcomThe founder of Megaupload and the tough face of online piracy in the early 2010s is finally heading to the US. Reuters reports New Zealand’s justice minister signed an extradition order on Thursday to end the entrepreneur’s nearly 13-year legal battle, paving the way for German-born Dotcom to face trial. accusations from the US government.
“I have carefully considered all the information and have decided that Mr. Dotcom should be extradited to the United States to stand trial,” Goldsmith said. The decision came more than 6 years after the New Zealand court ruled that Dotcom could be extradited to the United Statespaves the way for appeals culminating in today’s decision.
Once the 13th most visited site online, file hosting site Megaupload was a hotbed for pirated content. In early 2012, American authorities charged Dotcom and six other companies with racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering and copyright infringement. The US indictment alleged that Megaupload caused $500 million in damages to copyright holders, while earning $175 million from advertising and premium subscriptions.
The raid on Dotcom’s Auckland mansion was one of the most dramatic of 2012’s relatively quiet headlines. The New York Times informed when he saw the police, Dotcom barricaded himself inside, activated several electronic locks and waited in a safe room. When officers entered, they found Dotcom standing next to “a firearm they said looked like a sawed-off shotgun.”
Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz) had a few brushes with the law before. He claimed to have spent three months in a Munich prison in at least 1994 for “hacking into Pentagon computers and tracking real-time satellite photos of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.” He soon received a suspended two-year sentence for fraud involving stolen phone card numbers.
In 2001, he was charged in the largest insider trading case in German history. He reportedly fled Germany to avoid those charges, was captured in Thailand, extradited (not his first departure this week) and convicted in 2002. After some time, he moved to New Zealand, staying in a luxurious mansion. .
You can see that mansion and a taste of her larger-than-life personality in her music video for “Good Life.”
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith signed the extradition order on Thursday, following the standard practice of giving Dotcom “short time to think and take advice” on his decision.
Dotcom will never quit, placed The message on X “A submissive US colony in the South Pacific has decided to extradite me because of users uploading to Megaupload.”
