Kim Dotcom
Kim Dotcom, also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur and political activist who lives in Glenorchy, New Zealand.
Dotcom rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s as a hacker and an Internet entrepreneur. He was arrested in 1994 for trafficking in stolen phone calling card numbers. He was convicted on eleven charges of computer fraud, ten charges of data espionage, and various other charges in 1998 for which he served a two-year suspended sentence. In 2003, he was deported from Thailand to Germany, where he pleaded guilty to embezzlement in November 2003 and after five months in jail awaiting trial he received another 20 months suspended sentence.
Dotcom is the founder and former CEO of the defunct file-hosting service Megaupload. In 2012, the United States Department of Justice seized its website and pressed charges against Dotcom, including criminal copyright infringement, money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud. Dotcom was residing in New Zealand at the time; at the request of US authorities, New Zealand police raided his home in 2012 and arrested him. Dotcom was granted bail and initiated legal proceedings to challenge his arrest and the police's search and seizure of evidence, a process that has stretched over a decade without resolution as of 2025.
In 2017, a New Zealand court ruled that Dotcom could be extradited to the US on fraud charges related to Megaupload. Dotcom denied any wrongdoing and has accused US authorities of pursuing a vendetta against him on behalf of politically influential Hollywood studios. In 2018, the New Zealand Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's ruling. Dotcom appealed to the Supreme Court of New Zealand, which ruled in 2020 that Dotcom could be extradited to the United States, but that he could challenge the decision through judicial review. His extradition order was eventually signed on 15 August 2024. Dotcom has remained free in New Zealand while continuing to pursue judicial review of his extradition order.
In 2013, Dotcom launched another cloud storage service called Mega, although he severed all ties with the service in 2015. He also started and funded the Internet Party. The party contested the 2014 New Zealand general election under an electoral alliance with the Mana Movement and contested the 2017 general election independently, but failed to win any seats at either election.
Early life
Dotcom was born as Kim Schmitz in 1974 in Kiel in the northern part of West Germany. His mother was Finnish, from Turku, so he holds a Finnish passport and has siblings in Finland. His father was German. He legally changed his surname to Dotcom in 2005.Prior to his arrest in New Zealand, he enjoyed a luxurious life. In 2001, his main source of income was a company called Kimvestor, and he was known for spending his money on expensive cars and boats. During the 2000 Monaco Formula One Grand Prix, Dotcom chartered a yacht and used it to host parties for guests such as Prince Rainier of Monaco.
He was granted permanent residence in New Zealand on 29 November 2010. While his residency was under consideration, Dotcom was planning a fireworks show in Auckland at a cost of NZ$600,000. He leased a mansion in Coatesville, a rural community near Auckland, owned by entrepreneurs Richard and Ruth Bradley, and considered one of the most expensive homes in the country. He wanted to buy the mansion when the lease expired.
Before his arrest in New Zealand, he was the world's number-one-ranked Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 player for having the highest cumulative score in free for all mode out of more than 15 million online players.
Personal life
In 2007, Dotcom met Mona Verga and married her on 10 July 2009. Dotcom had one child from a previous relationship, who was born in September 2007. Dotcom and Verga had four children together, all using IVF treatment. The couple's first child together was born in 2009. Their second child together was born in 2010. Verga gave birth to twin girls in Auckland in March 2012, a month after Dotcom was released on bail from Mt Eden prison. On 17 May 2014, Dotcom announced on Twitter that he and Verga were separated and filing for divorce. Four days earlier, Verga left her directorship positions in the Dotcom family's companies.In March 2014, Dotcom was criticised by The Times of Israel and the New Zealand Jewish Council for his purchase of a rare signed copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, with Council president Stephen Goodman saying it was "morally unacceptable". Dotcom said the book was a financial investment and that he was the victim of a "disgusting smear campaign".
In November 2017, Dotcom announced he would marry his fiancée, Elizabeth Donnelly, on 20 January 2018; the anniversary of the raid during which he was arrested. They had been dating for two years and in 2017 moved to Queenstown to live. Their first child together was born in November 2022. This was Dotcom's sixth child, also conceived using IVF.
In 2024, Dotcom announced that he suffered a "serious stroke". In 2025, he moved to Dunedin where he is receiving medical treatment.
Legal investigations
Germany
As a teenager, Schmitz acquired a reputation in Germany after saying that he had bypassed the security of NASA, the Pentagon and Citibank under the name of Kimble, derived from Richard Kimble, a character in the 1963 TV series The Fugitive. Some of these hacks are disputed. He also stated that he had hacked corporate PBX systems in the United States and said he was selling the access codes.Schmitz operated a bulletin board system called "House of Coolness" where users would trade pirated software; around 1993, Schmitz was reportedly targeted by German anti-piracy lawyer, and had become a paid informant. Schmitz was arrested in March 1994 for selling stolen phone numbers and held in custody for a month. He was arrested again in 1998 on more hacking charges and convicted of 11 counts of computer fraud and 10 counts of data espionage. He was given a two-year suspended sentence; the judge of the case described Schmitz's actions as "youthful foolishness".
In 2001, Schmitz bought €375,000 worth of shares of the nearly bankrupt company Letsbuyit.com
Thailand
Dotcom moved to Thailand to avoid investigation, but was arrested there at the request of the German embassy. In response, he allegedly pretended to kill himself online and declared through his website that he wished to be known as "His Royal Highness King Kimble the First, Ruler of the Kimpire". He was deported back to Germany where he pleaded guilty to embezzlement in November 2003 and, after five months in jail awaiting trial, again received a suspended sentence, this time of 20 months. After avoiding a prison sentence for a second time, he left Germany and moved to Hong Kong in late 2003.Hong Kong
Dotcom registered Kimpire Limited in December 2003, soon after moving there. He set up a network of interlinked companies, including Trendax, which he said was an artificial intelligence-driven hedge fund. However, Trendax was never registered with Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission and the company was not legally allowed to accept investments or to conduct trades. After moving to New Zealand, Dotcom did not disclose his investment activity to the Securities and Futures Commission and was fined HK$8,000.Move to New Zealand
Dotcom visited New Zealand for 10 days in December 2008 and again for two months in 2009. He applied for residency and received it in November 2010. Immigration New Zealand made its decision on his application, despite his foreign convictions and despite his persona non grata status in Thailand, after officials used a special direction to waive "good character" requirements. Warwick Tuck, head of Immigration New Zealand, said that Dotcom had been granted residency as an "investor plus", or someone who invested $10 million in New Zealand.Despite granting him residency, Immigration New Zealand expressed concern that their decision might attract criticism that they had allowed Dotcom to buy his way into the country and attempted to keep it secret. Dotcom's residency status subsequently became the subject of intense media speculation when it came to light that Auckland mayor John Banks had become involved and that New Zealand's intelligence services had spied on him—an act made illegal by Dotcom's possession of residency in New Zealand. Immigration New Zealand officers judged Dotcom's convictions in Hong Kong to be too minor to consider deporting him.
On his residency application of 3 June 2010, Dotcom erroneously denied having been convicted of dangerous driving; he had pled guilty to dangerous driving north of Auckland in September 2009. The media speculated at the time that this could provide grounds for deportation.
Involvement with Auckland mayor John Banks
met Dotcom when Banks was Mayor of Auckland City. He asked Dotcom for help putting on a fireworks display in the city's harbour. Banks later attended a New Year's Eve party thrown by Dotcom at the city centre apartment of now bankrupt property developer David Henderson. He said it provided a great view of the fireworks display detonated over the Waitematā Harbour. Banks said he had advised Dotcom on how to obtain permission from the Overseas Investment Office to buy the Coatesville mansion.On 28 April 2012, Dotcom said he had donated $50,000 to John Banks' mayoral campaign in 2010 and that Banks had asked him to split the donation in two, allowing the Banks campaign to claim them as anonymous by falling within the anonymous limit of $25,000. In 2014, Banks was found guilty of filing a false electoral return, with evidence from Dotcom playing a major part in the case. This conviction was subsequently overturned on appeal following the discovery of new evidence, and a planned retrial was later cancelled and a verdict of acquittal entered.
Among Dotcom's revelations was a phone call from Banks, thanking him for the contribution. Dotcom subsequently recorded a song titled Amnesia, which mocks John Banks and the controversy of Dotcom's donation to him. A poll in October 2012 found the New Zealand public had a more favourable view of Kim Dotcom than of Banks.