A final setback for Kim Dotcom in exchange for her extradition from New Zealand

A final setback for Kim Dotcom in exchange for her extradition from New Zealand

New Zealand’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Kim.com’s last resort against extradition to the United States, where the Megaupload.com founder is accused of industrial-scale hacking.

The Wellington High Court rejected the appeal of the German citizen and two of his co-defendants, ignoring their claim that they were facing a wrongful trial.

“We do not believe that the Court should do anything more than the appeal filed, given our conclusion that there was no miscarriage of justice,” the three-judge panel concluded.

The German giant suspected of stealing millions of dollars through its popular online download platform is accused in the United States of fraud, extortion and money laundering, and its founder faces up to 20 years in prison.

It was the last resort of the internet tycoon, whose real name is Kim Schmitz, nearly a decade after the New Zealand police’s surprise raid of FBI warrants on his online mansion, his luxury Auckland property, in January 2012.

During the long battle that ensued, the New Zealand judiciary issued unfavorable verdicts against the German and the three other defendants, Matthias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk, and Finn Batatou, against whom the charges were dropped.

The 47-year-old has been rash reaction on social media to his latest legal setback.

“I’m not impressed,” he wrote on Twitter.

Kim Dotcom and its partners are suspected of making $175 million in illegal profits from their businesses and causing losses of more than half a billion dollars to rights holders of pirated music, movies and other products.

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Megaupload website has been closed down by US justice.

The accused defends himself from any crime. Kim Dotcom says the lawsuits were orchestrated by the administration of former President Barack Obama to appease the powerful in Hollywood.

Megaupload was one of the first examples of cloud computing, where users could upload files stored on servers making them easily available for download.

At the height of its business in 2011, Megaupload had 50 million daily users, 4% of global Internet traffic.

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