Kim Dotcom wants to fight against US extradition decision

New Zealand-based tech entrepreneur Kim Dotcom sharply criticized the U.S. government on Friday as his decade-long efforts to avoid extradition on fraud and money laundering charges appeared to have failed.

Local media reported on Thursday that New Zealand's justice minister had signed an extradition warrant for Dotcom, the founder of the file-sharing system Megaupload.

He is accused of, among other things, fraud, money laundering and organized crime, which can carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Dotcom has long fought extradition while publicly portraying himself as an advocate of internet freedom and claiming he is being persecuted for political reasons.

He is an outspoken supporter of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and enthusiastically repeats the Kremlin's arguments that the war in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear Armageddon.

“I love New Zealand. I'm not leaving,” he posted defiantly in a series of posts on Thursday.

“I would do it again,” he said, calling the US government “criminal.”

His website – an early prototype of cloud storage – was shut down when New Zealand police raided Dotcom's Auckland mansion in January 2012 at the behest of the FBI.

US prosecutors accuse the Megaupload service of enabling widespread piracy of films and books, thereby causing damage to rights holders amounting to over 500 million US dollars.

arb/djw/cwl