Kim Dotcom was extradited to the US after 12 years

Kim Dotcom, once the mastermind behind MegaUpload, has been extradited to the US after more than a decade of legal action.

New Zealand’s justice minister has signed an extradition order on Dotcom’s behalf. This means he will soon be extradited to the US to face charges against him and his former company Megaupload. Kim Schmitz, originally from Germany, officially changed her name to Kim Dotcom in 2005 and has lived in New Zealand for several years.

Deportation didn’t just happen. In 2012, Dotcom’s home was raided by the FBI. In the years that followed, the man continued a long legal battle to stay out of US hands. For example, in 2015 we wrote that he might be extradited to the United States. There was also a last chance in 2021 with a rejected appeals procedure.

Dotcom plays a role in MegaUpload, but the US mainly wants to sue Dotcom, a platform where users can upload files without much regulation. This made the site very popular for theft and other criminal purposes. Dotcom says in a dramatic post In X Including that users will be credited for uploading to MegaUpload. He himself says that copyright holders can always intervene.

Mega upload

Megaupload was founded in 2003 from Hong Kong by dotcom founder and CEO. The site has long been one of the most popular domains in the world, mainly as a hidden piracy destination. Megaupload rebranded as Mega (now mega.io) a year after Dotcom’s arrest and profiled itself as a privacy-friendly provider of Internet services. Dotcom will no longer be involved with the company.

US officials say movie and music studios have lost more than $500 million through MegaUpload’s operations. The site reportedly generated $175 million in turnover. Apart from Dotcom, marketing director Finn Padato and technical director, co-founder Matthias Ortmann and Dutchman Bram van der Kolk were also arrested. The latter two have agreed to serve their sentences in New Zealand. Batato died two years ago.