U.S. prosecutors say 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 in early 2012 and arrested Dotcom and other company officers.
The whole megaupload ordeal was one of the first times I remember feeling ashamed of my government’s actions as a teenager. The cops used an illegal warrant to raid his home and illegally sent copies of his hard drives to the American FBI.
Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, is continuing to fight the U.S. charges and threat of extradition. He has said he expects his former colleagues to testify against him as part of the deal they struck.
His expectation there matches his past behaviour, hardly surprising he has it (and probably justified). It’s been a while but in the early 90s he ratted out pirates and fellow credit card fraudsters, still ended up with two years suspended sentence (tried as juvenile) for fraud, computer fraud, organised fencing (not the rapier kind), and misuse of titles.
Then there was that investment fraud thing, one and a half year suspended plus 100k Euro, early 2000s.
Generally speaking: Big brain, giant ego, complete lack of wisdom.
Now I’m sure Kiwis have plenty to gripe about about the behaviour of their government, but rest assured that it’s not hitting anyone innocent.
