Originally shared by Miguel Afonso Caetano"These were the days of the yachts and cars. At the mansion, from his custom-made $100,000 bed, he ran his business by night and devoted himself to becoming the number one player (out of 15 million) of the online game Call of Duty.
And then it all changed. The reason he founded the Internet party, he says, is because of the "enormous injustice" his family experienced during what has become known as "the raid". It involved 77 officers and two helicopters descending in a dawn swoop on the Dotcom mansion, where his three children and then seven-month pregnant wife were also living. Dotcom and three of Megaupload's co-founders were arrested (and another three arrested abroad). It was the biggest, most dramatic raid to ever take place on New Zealand soil and was instigated on behalf of the FBI. This shocked the country. "New Zealanders are sensitive to the idea of being directed by the US, which dates back to the country's ban on nuclear warships in the 80s," says Bryce Edwards, a columnist for the New Zealand Herald and lecturer in politics at Otago University. "We stood up to the most powerful nation on Earth then, but at the same time we were a victim of it.""
And then it all changed. The reason he founded the Internet party, he says, is because of the "enormous injustice" his family experienced during what has become known as "the raid". It involved 77 officers and two helicopters descending in a dawn swoop on the Dotcom mansion, where his three children and then seven-month pregnant wife were also living. Dotcom and three of Megaupload's co-founders were arrested (and another three arrested abroad). It was the biggest, most dramatic raid to ever take place on New Zealand soil and was instigated on behalf of the FBI. This shocked the country. "New Zealanders are sensitive to the idea of being directed by the US, which dates back to the country's ban on nuclear warships in the 80s," says Bryce Edwards, a columnist for the New Zealand Herald and lecturer in politics at Otago University. "We stood up to the most powerful nation on Earth then, but at the same time we were a victim of it.""
Kim Dotcom: from playboy entrepreneur to political firebrand