Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom ‘suffers serious stroke’, X post says

Kim Dotcom, the internet entrepreneur fighting deportation from New Zealand to the United States on charges relating to his file-sharing website Megaupload, has suffered a “serious stroke”, according to a post on his X account.

“I have the best health professionals helping me to make a recovery. I will be back as soon as I can. Please be patient and pray for my family and I,” the post said.

Dotcom’s lawyer, Ira Rothken, confirmed to The Associated Press that the contents of the statement were accurate but did not provide further details.

News of his ill health comes during a the Finnish-German millionaire’s lengthy battle to avoid extradition from New Zealand to the US to face charges of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering.

Legal battle has gone on for years

New Zealand’s justice minister Paul Goldsmith in August agreed to surrend Dotcom to the United States to face trial, in a ruling intended to cap a 12-year legal battle. A date for the extradition was not set, and Goldsmith said Dotcom would be allowed “a short period of time to consider and take advice” on the decision.

Dotcom’s lawyer Rothken at the time wrote on X that Dotcom intended to challenge the decision in court through a judicial review, in which a judge is asked to evaluate whether an official’s decision was reached correctly.

The saga stretches to the 2012 arrest of Dotcom in a dramatic raid on his Auckland mansion, along with other company officers.

Lawyers argued users were to blame for illegal downloads

Prosecutors said the once wildly popular Megaupload raked in at least $175m (€167m) – mainly from people who used the site to illegally download songs, television shows and movies – before the FBI shut it down earlier that year.

Lawyers for the Finnish-German millionaire and the others arrested had argued that it was the users of the site, founded in 2005, who chose to pirate material, not its founders. But prosecutors argued the men were the architects of a vast criminal enterprise, with the Department of Justice describing it as the largest criminal copyright case in US history.

The men fought the order for years – criticising the investigation and arrests – but, in 2021, New Zealand’s Supreme Court ruled that Dotcom and two other men could be extradited. It remained up to the country’s Justice Minister to decide if the extradition should proceed.

“I love New Zealand. I’m not leaving,” German-born Dotcom wrote on X in August.

Two of Dotcom’s former business partners pleaded guilty to the charges they faced and served time in a New Zealand jail, avoiding extradition to the US. Prosecutors abandoned an extradition bid against another, who has since died of cancer.

Dotcom did not say in Monday’s statement when he had suffered the stroke. Usually a prolific X user, the internet mogul last posted to the site on 6 November.