The Coatesville mansion is a kind of medieval castle full of luxury, built at the beginning of this century with all the wealth of the best. resorts The closest thing to a ‘SWAT’ scenario happened on January 20, 2012, northwest of Auckland, New Zealand. Only with real police and assault rifles. At dawn, 76 special operations officers and two helicopters glided into the mansion, which until then had become famous not only for its ostentatiousness but also for the pool parties organized by its tenants from time to time.

That was exactly it. who were they looking for. He and his three partners.

The goal: to arrest and extradite them on charges of extortion, money laundering and copyright infringement. That same month, a United States court filed charges related to the online activity of three businessmen, opening the legal mechanism for extradition that remains complicated almost eleven years later. judicial history marked by appeals.

From commercial records to legal records

If you were surfing the internet during the first decade of the 2000s, this Coastesville tenant’s name might be as familiar to you as his face: Kim DotcomFounder of Megaupload, the portal that marks the before and after of internet downloads… and unfortunately copyright.

The histrionic image of the tall, stocky man, dressed day and night in a black cap, jacket, T-shirt and trousers, played a leading role in articles in both the specialized and general press in the early years of the last decade. He could be seen basking in the opulence on jets, posing with his luxury car collection on idyllic beaches, or mingling with the crowds—literally—at parties he hosted at the Coatesville pool.

There was a time when I skipped back through economic and technological history. socialite. However, his most visible areas over the years have been in the judicial genre, politics, and especially in some brief roles in X, where he worked as an executive. an active user A self-proclaimed “Internet freedom fighter” boasted that: 1.7 million followers.

Who is Dotcom? So what are you doing today, ten years after Megaupload’s collapse?

His origins are in Kiel, Germany, far from the Antipodes, where he put down roots and amassed his fortune. He was born there, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, in 1974 with his name. Kim Schmitz. His mother was Finnish. His father is German. It didn’t take long for him to find the fertile ground on which to shape his future in technology. In 1998, at the age of 24, he had already gained a certain reputation among the hackers of his generation and was facing the law for the first time on charges of selling stolen phone cards. He would eventually move to Hong Kong and New Zealand.

The other big aspect is Keep bragging on Twitter“entrepreneur”. Although he also made his mark on controversies on this side from a young age.

Dotcom became the protagonist of a controversy in Germany when, after the failure of Data Project, the security company he founded in 1994, he announced plans to invest a significant amount of money in LetsBuylt, in which he owns shares. Time was bankrupt. The businessman’s promises were not well received in LebtsBuylt, which suddenly started to receive investment again.

The problem is that Kim’s promised injection of funds has not materialized. On the contrary, he took advantage of the new scenario and the revaluation of the company and sold his own shares at a good price. This – recalls the BBC – cost him dearly arrest A lawsuit was filed in Bangkok on charges of using inside information for profit.

The business venture that would make him millions and, above all, fame would be Megaupload, launched in 2005, three years after RapidShare demonstrated its potential for direct downloading of files between users.

Their business model was seemingly innocuous, similar to WeTransfer. It offered subscription services for uploading and downloading content. Seven years ago you could opt for the free version (you could upload up to 250 MB and wait 30 to 60 seconds for the download) or pay between $2.99 ​​and $200 for one of the “premium” account formats. The idea was that you could share invoices, photos, travel videos without overloading your email or fiddling with USB drives.

Until then everything is perfect. There is nothing reprehensible a priori. The problem is that in practice the purpose that many users gave Megaupload was: something different: Used to share movies and TV series; Megaupload is an application that became popular without the owners caring much about it.

The service began to specialize by storage types: Megavideo, Megapix, Megabox… With a clear goal: to dominate file transfer.

Did you get it? It didn’t go bad.

At the beginning of 2012 it was claimed that Megaupload would continue from: 60 million users It was registered and presented as the 13th most visited site on the entire internet, with an average of 50 million visits per day. At its peak – recalls the UN-affiliated UNODC itself – it was said to represent around four per cent of registered Internet traffic globally.

But there is no empire that lasts a thousand years. Especially if it goes against the interests of some of Hollywood’s most powerful executives, who accuse him of causing million-dollar losses to their industry.

The US justice system took action and, in January 2012, convicted Kim and some of his colleagues, who had already been turned into Dotcom. copyrightamong other crimes. According to Swissinfo, the US alleges that Megaupload illegally generated approximately US$175 million in revenue from hosting illegal material.

The rest was history: a precious deployment of Harrelson’s men, helicopters and rifles included, at the most luxurious mansion in Coatesville early one morning in early 2012.

Between courts, projects and headlines

Dotcom managed to regain his freedom and some of his resources, but his name was branded, Megaupload pulled down the curtains, and he faced a long, long judicial process to try to stop his extradition to the US.

In 2021, the New Zealand Supreme Court rejected his appeal, and months later he faced another setback when two of his former partners left him alone and pleaded guilty. He doesn’t seem ready to give up.

When same summer When New Zealand’s Justice Minister signed a decree ordering Dotcom’s extradition to the United States, it didn’t take long for the businessman to take to the internet to express his anger. And he did so in the defiant tone that characterizes him. “The obedient American colony in the South Pacific has decided to extradite me because of things users uploaded to Megaupload,” he tweeted.

His attention hasn’t just been focused on the stands for the last few years. Dotcom continued to showcase these, though perhaps not with the reach and visibility that Megaupload had at the time. “entrepreneur” statusSince 2012, he has been frequently in the media for his projects… and occasionally controversial.

He founded Mega after the closure of his old company, in which he owned 68% of Megaupload shares. The project launched in 2013 with a similar approach to its discredited predecessor: secure, anonymous file sharing.

Kim took command of the ship, albeit briefly. He left his post shortly after and even had a falling out with the company’s executives in 2016: He suggested through his networks that the website be shut down in the near future; It was something the person in charge of Mega immediately called “absolutely wrong.”

Since then, Kim hasn’t stopped. Moved for Megaupload rebootHe embarked on new projects that even led him to record a music album (“Good Times”) and became involved in the crypto world. He also tried his hand at politics and failed to support a party that would defend Internet rights.

Perhaps what gives him the most visibility is the crusade he seems to have undertaken. regain one’s wealth and prestigeAlthough the USA has poured a pot of cold water on it because it may have to re-enter the money it saved with Megaupload.

Along the same lines, he made headlines six years ago when he sued the New Zealand Government for “destroying his reputation and business”. Dotcom sought neither more nor less than $6.8 billion in damages, which it claimed was intended to repair the damages it suffered.

The days when he watched from his mansion in Coatesville as Megaupload triumphed on the Internet and became one of the most popular faces in the industry are far, far away. Your situation is very different today. And it’s not just because of the legal glitch that saw New Zealand green light his extradition to the US in August. At the end of November, Dotcom’s account on X reported that the businessman was recovering from his illness. “severe paralysis”.

Image | Roberto O’Neill (Wikimedia) and Thierry Ehrmann (Flickr)

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*An earlier version of this article was published in December 2022.