Kim Dotcom facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Kim Dotcom
Dotcom in 2014
Born	Kim Schmitz (1974-01-21) 21 January 1974 (age 50) Kiel, West Germany
Nationality	Germany Finland
Other names	Kimble, Kim Tim Jim Vestor
Citizenship	New Zealand
Education	Middle school
Occupation	Entrepreneur
Years active	2005–present
Known for	Founder and CEO of Megaupload, Mega and K.im
Height	2 m (6 ft 7 in)
Political party	Internet Party (2014–2018)
Criminal charge(s)	Computer fraud, data espionage, embezzlement
Criminal penalty	Two-year suspended sentence, Five months served and twenty months suspended sentence
Spouse(s)	Mona Verga ​ ​ (m. 2009; div. 2014)​ Elizabeth Donnelly ​ ​ (m. 2018)​
Children	6

Kim Dotcom (né Schmitz; born 21 January 1974), also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur and political activist who lives in Glenorchy, New Zealand.

Biography

Kim Schmitz in 1996

Dotcom was born Kim Schmitz in 1974 in Kiel in the north of Germany in what was then politically 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.

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 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 (2005–2012). 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 posted bail and initiated legal proceedings in order to prevent his extradition to the United States.

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.

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.

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. 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 he was released on bail from Mt Eden prison. On 17 May 2014, Dotcom announced on Twitter that he was separated from his wife Mona and was filing for divorce. Four days earlier, Mona had left her directorship positions in the Dotcom family's companies.

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.

Prior to his arrest in New Zealand, Dotcom 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 240 ft (73 m) 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 most total kills in free for all mode out of more than 15 million online players.

Other activities

Following the September 11 attacks in the United States, Dotcom launched a group called Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terrorism (YIHAT). He said that he had hacked Sudanese bank accounts belonging to Osama bin Laden and offered a $10 million reward for information leading to bin Laden's capture on his now-defunct kimble.org site.

In February 2012, American musician Lindsey Stirling released "Lord of The Rings Medley," a music video funded by Dotcom.

In June 2012, Dotcom announced the upcoming launch of Megabox, a music streaming service. That October, he said that Megabox would launch on 19 January 2013, the first anniversary of Megaupload's shutdown.

On 2 November, Dotcom announced a new file storage service, similar to Megaupload, using the domain name me.ga. It was to be launched 19 January 2013, but the African state of Gabon, which controls the .ga domain, cancelled the me.ga name on 6 November 2012. The site has since registered the names mega.co.nz and mega.net.nz. The new file hosting service offers file encryption to enhance user privacy and security. As a result of this encryption, Dotcom and mega.co.nz will be unable to determine the content of the uploaded data, allowing for a claim of plausible deniability to be made should new charges arise. In January 2013, Dotcom offered a $13,500 reward to anyone able to defeat the site's security system.

Dotcom has been involved in the local community in Auckland. In December 2012, he announced that he would be playing the part of Santa Claus in the play MegaChristmas, run by Auckland's Basement Theatre. In a local ceremony on the first of that month, he turned on the Franklin Road Christmas lights and delivered a speech before the display.

On 4 September 2013, Dotcom stepped down as director of Mega and announced he was working on a music streaming service called Baboom. Dotcom says it will be more advanced than Megabox.

On 10 September 2013, Dotcom announced that he would play 100 people in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 at New Zealand's first Digital Entertainment Expo.

On 25 December 2014, Dotcom helped stop the Christmas DDoS attacks on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network by giving Lizard Squad 3,000 $99 one-year Mega accounts which would then be converted to lifetime accounts worth approximately $300,000.

In 2017, the biographical documentary Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web, directed by Annie Goldson, premiered at the New Zealand International Film Festival.

In November 2019, Dotcom planned to launch his own cryptocurrency, but due to regulatory uncertainty, the offer was cancelled.

Discography

Albums

Singles

• "Megaupload" (2011)
• "Mr President" (2012)
• "Precious" (2012)
• "Good Life" (2016)

See also

In Spanish: Kim Dotcom para niños