Kim Dotcom
Kim Dotcom Kim Dotcom in 2013 Born Kim Schmitz (1974-01-21) 21 January 1974 (age 41) Kiel, West Germany Status Convicted, probation served Residence Auckland, New Zealand Nationality Finnish and German Other names Kimble, Kim Tim Jim Vestor Education secondary modern school (en‑GB) / junior high school (en‑US) Occupation Entrepreneur Years active 2005–present Organization Megaupload Ltd.; Mega Known for Founder of Megaupload.com, Mega.co.nz and sister websites Home town Kiel, Germany Spouse(s) Mona Verga Dotcom (Separated in 2014) Children 5 Website www.kim.com Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz; 21 January 1974), also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur, businessman, and political party founder currently residing in New Zealand. He is the founder of file hosting service Mega as well as its now defunct predecessor Megaupload. In politics he is the founder, main funder, and "party visionary" of New Zealand's Internet Party. He rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s as a self-proclaimed hacker and internet entrepreneur. He was convicted of several crimes, and received a suspended prison sentence in 1994 for computer fraud and data espionage, and another suspended prison sentence in 2003 for insider trading and embezzlement. In January 2012, the New Zealand Police placed him in custody in response to US charges of criminal copyright infringement in relation to his Megaupload website. Dotcom was accused of costing the entertainment industry $500 million through pirated content uploaded to his file-sharing site, which had 150 million registered users. Dotcom has denied the charges, and is fighting the attempt to extradite him to the United States. Despite legal action still pending over Megaupload, Mega launched in January 2013, opening to the public exactly one year after Megaupload was shut down. It is a cloud storage service that uses encryption to prevent government or third-party "spies" from invading users' privacy.