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Wellington – New Zealand justice confirmed Thursday that Kim Dotcom could be extradited to the United States where he is accused of online piracy, a huge blow to the founder of Megaupload.com suspected of looting on an industrial scale.
The 44-year-old German giant, accused of embezzling millions of dollars with his iconic online download platform, is accused of fraud, racketeering and money laundering, and faces up to 20 years in prison.
The flamboyant Internet mogul, whose real name was Kim Schmitz, appealed to the Wellington Court of Appeal to challenge two trial judgments that he and his three co-defendants could be sent to United States to be pursued.
This court found that the record of the FBI and the US Department of Justice was solid, more than six years after a spectacular raid by the New Zealand police at " Dotcom Mansion ", its sumptuous property in Auckland, in January 2012.
The evidence available to the US authorities " is prima facie admissible and supports the allegations that the applicants conspired and indeed deliberately violated the copyright on a mbadive scale for the purposes of commercial gain "said the Court of Appeal.
Kim Dotcom and his three co-defendants are alleged to have taken $ 175 million in illegal profit from their activities and caused more than half a billion dollars in losses to rights-holders of musical, film and other pirated products. Megaupload has been closed by American justice.
– Appeal –
" We are disappointed by the judgment rendered today ," Ira Rothken, Kim Dotcom's lawyer, said in a tweet, explaining that there would have been an appeal to the Supreme Court.
" We have now appeared before three separate jurisdictions, which rendered three different legal badyzes, one of which held that there was no violation of copyright law ".
The German and his three co-defendants – Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk – forbid any offense.
Kim Dotcom claims that the lawsuits against him were orchestrated by the administration of former President Barack Obama to please the powerful Hollywood.
Megaupload was one of the first examples of " cloud computing " (cloud computing), users who could upload files stored on servers that were becoming readily available for download by d ' other internet users.
At the height of its activity, in 2011, Megaupload claimed 50 million daily users, and 4% of global internet traffic.
The District Court and then the High Court had ruled against Kim Dotcom.
In its 120-page decision, the Court of Appeal states that it wishes the case to be resolved promptly.
– " Easy Target " –
" We order that the District Court conduct without delay its mission under section 26 of the extradition legislation in accordance with present judgment ".
The legislation provides that Minister of Justice Andrew Little can now sign an extradition order.
The lawyers of the German tycoon can appeal to the Supreme Court, the last judicial remedy available to him, but they will have to present irrefutable evidence of a miscarriage of justice.
But Kim Dotcom does not let go, confirmed his lawyer. " We will seize the Supreme Court ".
Kim Schmitz was born in Kiel in northern Germany in 1974 and became Kim Dotcom in 2005, at about the same time as he founded Megaupload.
With his penchant for luxury and black clothes, he portrayed himself as a villain of James Bond films, a victim of this vindictiveness of the authorities.
" I am an easy target, they needed a villain who is rich, flamboyant, extravagant ," he confided in 2013.
" Traveling in a private jet and driving in registered cars + GOD +, + DEFONCED + and + MAFIA + is certainly not the best way to keep a low profile ", he conceded.
In a six-year judicial series, he never confessed defeated, even announcing in January, for the anniversary of the raid on his villa, a request for billions of dollars in compensation to the New Zealand government.
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