“I have carefully reviewed all the information and have come to the conclusion that Mr Dotcom should be extradited to the United States to face trial,” the New Zealand Herald newspaper quoted the minister as saying. He said he had obtained “extensive advice from the Department of Justice” on the matter.
Dotcom is combative
The founder of the former Internet platform Megaupload, known as Kim Dotcom, is actually Kim Schmitz and has lived in the Pacific state since 2010. The USA wants to put him on trial for copyright infringement and money laundering on a large scale. If convicted, the 50-year-old faces decades in prison. He was combative on social networks and declared: “I love New Zealand. I’m not leaving.”
Ira Rothken, one of Dotcom’s lawyers, wrote on X that work is currently underway to bring the case before the Supreme Court of New Zealand for judicial review. “The fight for justice continues. The world is watching,” Rothken wrote.
There has been a legal dispute surrounding the entrepreneur, who was born in Kiel in 1974, for years. There have already been several proceedings, all the way to New Zealand’s Supreme Court in Wellington, in which he sought to prevent his extradition.
Megaupload shut down years ago
Dotcom is one of the most colorful figures in the Internet world. He first appeared in the hacker scene in the mid-1990s. He became a multi-millionaire with the file-sharing platform Megaupload. The company financed itself through advertising and paid access for subscribers. At times, the site was one of the most popular websites in the world. After investigations by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), it was shut down in 2012.
The entrepreneur lives under a changed name. In February 2017, a New Zealand court ruled that he could be extradited – not for copyright infringement, but for fraud. However, there have been repeated appeals against this decision.
Experts say it could take some time for the legal review planned by Dotcom’s legal team to be completed. According to New Zealand media, the extradition order is “significant” but is just another step in a process that is likely to take years.
