Kim Dotcom loses 12-year fight to halt deportation from New Zealand to face US case

Kim Dotcom, founder of the once wildly popular file-sharing website Megaupload, lost a 12-year fight this week to halt his deportation from New Zealand to the U.S. on charges of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Kim Dotcom, founder of the once wildly popular file-sharing website Megaupload, lost a 12-year fight this week to halt his deportation from New Zealand to the U.S. on charges of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering. New Zealand’s Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith divulged Friday that he had decided Dotcom should be surrendered to the U.S. to face trial, capping — for now — a drawn-out legal fight. A date for the extradition was not set, and Goldsmith said Dotcom would be allowed “a short period of time to consider and take advice” on the decision. He did not elaborate, although a member of his legal team, Ira Rothken, wrote on the site that a bid for a judicial review — in which a New Zealand judge would be asked to evaluate Goldsmith’s decision — was being prepared. Prosecutors said Megaupload raked in at least $175 million — mainly from people who used the site to illegally download songs, television shows and movies — before the FBI shut it down earlier that year. But prosecutors argued the men were the architects of a vast criminal enterprise, with the Department of Justice describing it as the largest criminal copyright case in U.S. history. The men fought the order for years — lambasting the investigation and arrests — but in 2021 New Zealand’s Supreme Court ruled that Dotcom and two other men could be extradited. “I have received extensive advice from the Ministry of Justice on this matter” and considered all information carefully, Goldsmith said in his statement. Two of his former business partners, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, pleaded guilty to charges against them in a New Zealand court in June 2023 and were sentenced to two and a half years in jail. Prosecutors had earlier abandoned their extradition bid against a fourth officer of the company, Finn Batato, who was arrested in New Zealand. In 2015, Megaupload computer programmer Andrus Nomm, of Estonia, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit felony copyright infringement and was sentenced to one year and one day in U.S. federal prison. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/kim-dotcom-loses-12-year-fight-halt-deportation-112885176