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Two years ago, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom joked in emails with his new neighbors in New Zealand about his bad-boy reputation before telling them his criminal past was behind him and he was coming to the country with good intentions.
"I am a former hacker" who was once convicted of insider trading, he wrote, before going on to say "In all seriousness: My wife, two kids and myself love New Zealand and 'We come in peace.'"
Dotcom's emails came to light Wednesday, the same day a New Zealand judge denied him bail following his arrest on U.S. accusations of copyright infringement and a U.S. official confirmed the arrest of a fifth member of his company.
Judge David McNaughton in Auckland denied Dotcom bail pending a hearing Feb. 22 on his possible extradition to face trial in the United States, saying Dotcom poses a flight risk. Dotcom, 38, insists he is innocent and poses no flight risk.
New Zealand police arrested three other Megaupload employees last week on U.S. accusations they facilitated millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content, costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. McNaughton is expected to make bail rulings on the three later this week or early next week.
In Washington, a U.S. Justice Department official said Dutch police have arrested a fifth suspect -- software programmer Andrus Nomm, 32, a citizen of Estonia and a resident of both Turkey and Estonia. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is still pending.
In New Zealand, Dotcom's neighbor Kevin Crossley said Dotcom cut an imposing figure when he took a lease on the $24 million luxury mansion in their sleepy neighborhood of Coatesville, near Auckland. Crossley said he never met Dotcom, but he would see him zooming past in luxury cars when he went horse... newsfactor.com »
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He looked like a character Hollywood might produce: a giant, swashbuckling, black-suited jet-setter, bikinied babes on his arm, yachts, planes and exotic cars at his disposal. He displayed a villainous visage and a shotgun in his publicity photos, and his fleet boasted "GOD" and "EVIL" on license tags.
But the story of Kim Dotcom, 38, a German born as Kim Schmitz who liked to call himself King Kimble, reaches far beyond a cartoonish persona, self-promotion and a criminal record of pump-and-dump stock fraud.
The former computer hacker is the principle figure behind Megaupload, which U.S. prosecutors charge was a global empire that reaped a mega-fortune from illegal digital distribution of movies, songs and other copyright works.
In a New Zealand jail awaiting extradition to the USA on charges of racketeering, money-laundering and copyright crimes, Dotcom has found himself at the center of a high-stakes battle over Internet freedom vs. copyright protection. It is a fight touching institutions from Congress to Silicon Valley and pitting the recording industry against some hip-hop artists who see Megaupload as a way to bypass record-label middlemen.
Interviews with key players in the case and a close examination of the 72-page indictment and business records in Hong Kong offer a rare inside look at how a small group of computer wizards allegedly made hundreds of millions of dollars, funding Dotcom's flamboyant life of riches and creating one of the Web's most popular and controversial sites -- a site that came into the government's cross-hairs two years ago after a complaint from the Motion Picture Association of America.
In the days after Dotcom's arrest, the case has triggered an angry response from the hacker group Anonymous, which began an attack that briefly shut down Web sites including the Justice Department, FBI, Universal Music and others.
Despite the arrests of Dotcom and his top... newsfactor.com » |
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