US Govt can seize Kim Dotcom’s millions in assets
A US court has rejected a bid by New Zealand-based Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom to retrieve hundreds of millions of dollars of overseas assets ordered to be seized by the US Government.
These were frozen by the New Zealand Government on behalf of US authorities last March, 18 months after criminal charges were laid against the digital maverick.
Items included $75 million in bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand, multiple cars, four jet skis, the Dotcom mansion, several luxury cars, two 108-inch TVs, three 82-inch TVs, a $10,000 watch, and a photograph by Olaf Mueller worth over $100,000. However New Zealand courts have released millions in legal fees for Dotcom and $170,000 per month in living expenses.
A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Friday that under American law, authorities can seize cash and items of value if they are believed to be ill-gotten, even without filing any criminal charges.
During the hearing, the prosecutor claimed that Dotcom was a fugitive from justice, and therefore could not make claims to seized assets. He faces charges including racketeering, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit money laundering. It estimated that Dotcom caused $500 million in damages to the movie industry.
But Dotcom legal team called the process an “abuse” of the system. It argued that the US can neither use its legal system to seize assets abroad nor can Dotcom be considered a fugitive if he has never set foot in the United States.
His defence team also argued it was grossly unfair to strip a person of all their assets, “so if you ever arrive in the US you will not have your own funds to use to mount a fair defense in the largest criminal copyright case in history.”
After years of delay, in December 2015, Dotcom was finally ordered to be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges over his file-sharing businesses. Prosecutors claim that Megaupload produced at least $175 million in illegal assets from fees and ads for its owners and executives from its creation in 2005 to its demise in 2012
At its peak, officials say, Megaupload was the 13th most popular site on the Internet. Dotcom’s has steadily maintained that Megaupload was just an online storage provider, and could not be held accountable for its users uploading copyright-infringing content.
But Dotcom’s appeal is set to be heard before the High Court in Auckland on August 29. Dotcom could continue to appeal, first to the New Zealand Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court of New Zealand, dragging the issue out for a few more years.
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