children status nationality birth_date residence education organization birth_name other_names image_size spouse image name occupation caption years_active birth_place penalty known_for website residency article_title home_town
5 convicted , probation served finnish and german 21 january 1974 auckland , new zealand secondary & nbsp ; / junior high school & nbsp ; modern -lrb- en‑us -rrb- school & nbsp ; -lrb- en‑gb -rrb- megaupload ; mega kim schmitz kimble , kim tim jim vestor 219px mona verga dotcom -lrb- separated in 2014 -rrb- file : kim dotcom crowd cropped.jpg kim dotcom entrepreneur kim dotcom in 2013 2005 -- present kiel , west germany multiple suspended detentions june 2012 founder of megaupload.com , mega.co.nz and sister websites -lsb- http://www.kim.com/ www.kim.com -rsb- new zealand kim dotcom
 kiel , germany
kim dotcom

kim dotcom -lrb- born kim schmitz ; 21 january 1974 -rrb- , also known as kimble and kim tim jim vestor , is a german-finnish internet entrepreneur , businessman , and political party founder who resides in new zealand .
he has been accused of criminal copyright infringement and a host of derivative charges , such as money laundering , racketeering and wire fraud , by the us department of justice and is currently fighting extradition proceedings in new zealand .
he was the founder of now-defunct file hosting service megaupload as well as its successor mega .
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 internet entrepreneur .
he received prison time 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 .
