Kim Dotcom demands billions from New Zealand

wellington - Kim Dotcom, the big man behind the MegaUpload site, is counterattacking. He demands a great compensation from the New Zealand government. There's no amount in the claim, but on Twitter he says it's billions.

Dotcom ran the MegaUpload site from New Zealand, where people could distribute films, songs and games. In January 2012, the network was taken off the air. Agents invaded his enormous country house near Auckland and confiscated, among other things, twenty exclusive cars. Dotcom and his colleagues, including Zwollenaar Bram van der Kolk, were arrested. New Zealand wants to extradite them to the United States, where they may be prosecuted for copyright violations, money laundering and fraud. Those things are still running.

Dotcom says that mistakes were made in the whole case. MegaUpload would now have been worth more than 8 billion euros, he had calculated, and he was 68 percent owner. He has now lost that money, just like other income.

The 44-year-old Dotcom was born in Germany as Kim Schmitz. In 2005 he officially changed his surname to Dotcom. He celebrated the sixth anniversary of the raid on Saturday with a marriage. He married the student Elizabeth Donnelly. Dotcom already has five children from his first marriage: Kaylo, Kimmo, Kobi, Keera and Kylee.