Anika Begay
Kim Dotcom will be extradited to the United States to face long-standing criminal charges relating to his defunct file-sharing service Megaupload. The order was signed by New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, according to Thingssaying he had received “extensive advice from the Department of Justice on this matter” and that “Mr Dotcom should be handed over to the United States for trial.”
As the founder and former CEO of Megaupload, Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz) was accused by U.S. authorities of losing movie studios and record labels more than $500 million by allowing users to share pirated content. The German-born Internet mogul moved to New Zealand in 2010 and has been fighting extradition since local police, at the request of the FBI, raided his Auckland mansion in 2012 on racketeering, money laundering and copyright infringement charges. The Justice Department shut down Megaupload that same year.
Dotcom, who has spent the past few years promoting various conspiracy theories and digital disinformation, responded to X’s deportation ruling, saying that “the obedient US colony in the South Pacific has just decided to extradite me for what users have uploaded to Megaupload, without my asking for it.” Two former Megaupload officials, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, were sentenced to 31 and 30 months in prison, respectively, last year after agreeing to a plea deal to avoid extradition.
