New Zealand’s justice minister says Kim Dotcom will be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges linked to the now-shuttered file-sharing site Megaupload, potentially bringing to an end a legal battle that has lasted more than a decade.
German-born Dotcom lives in New Zealand and has been fighting extradition to the US after an FBI-ordered search of his Auckland home in 2012. New Zealand’s High Court first approved his extradition in 2017, and the Court of Appeal reaffirmed that decision the following year. In 2020, the country’s Supreme Court again affirmed the decision, but opened the door to a new judicial review.
Now, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has signed the extradition order for Dotcom, a spokesman said on Thursday.
“Having carefully considered all the information, I have determined that Mr Dotcom should be extradited to the United States to stand trial,” Goldsmith said. “As is customary, I have given Mr Dotcom a short period of time to consider my decision and seek advice, and therefore will be making no further comment at this stage.”
“A submissive US colony in the South Pacific has decided to extradite me because of content uploaded by its users to Megaupload,” Dotcom wrote on X on Tuesday, apparently referring to the extradition order. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Dotcom, who faces more serious charges including money laundering and organized crime as well as copyright infringement, has long argued that he should not be held liable for copyright infringement committed using his site, a file-sharing service that allows users to upload content and share links with others to download.
“New Zealand Copyright Act (92b) clearly provides that ISPs cannot be criminally liable for the actions of their users,” Dotcom said after the High Court first ruled against him in 2017. “Unless you’re Kim Dotcom?” The High Court disagreed, arguing that under New Zealand law, the conduct could be classified as a form of fraud, paving the way for Dotcom’s extradition.
US authorities say Dotcom and three other Megaupload executives caused losses of more than $500 million (around £390 million) to film studios and record companies by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material, generating more than $175 million in revenue for the website.
The site was officially based in Hong Kong until 2012, when the US seized the domain name and shut it down. However, the site survived and was relaunched as Mega in 2013 with a New Zealand domain name. Dotcom has not been involved with the company since at least 2015. The company now describes itself as an “online privacy” service, and is run by Shane Te Pou (aka Shane Phillips), a New Zealander who joined the company as head of human resources.
Megaupload’s chief marketing officer, Finn Batato, and chief technology officer and co-founder, Matthias Ortmann, both from Germany, were arrested with Dotcom in Auckland in 2012, along with a third executive, Dutchman Bram van der Kolk.
Oatman and van der Kolk struck plea deals and were spared extradition, with both sentenced to life in prison in New Zealand in 2023. Batato died in New Zealand in 2022.
