Kim Dotcom (né Schmitz; born 21 January 1974), also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur and political activist who lives in Glenorchy, New Zealand.
Dotcom rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s as a hacker and an Internet entrepreneur. He was arrested in 1994 for trafficking in stolen phone calling card numbers. He was convicted on eleven charges of computer fraud, ten charges of data espionage, and various other charges in 1998 for which he served a two-year suspended sentence. In 2003, he was deported from Thailand to Germany, where he pleaded guilty to embezzlement in November 2003 and after five months in jail awaiting trial he received another 20 months suspended sentence.
Dotcom is the founder and former CEO of the defunct file-hosting service Megaupload (2005–2012). In 2012, the United States Department of Justice seized its website and pressed charges against Dotcom, including criminal copyright infringement, money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud. Dotcom was residing in New Zealand at the time; at the request of US authorities, New Zealand police raided his home in 2012 and arrested him. Dotcom was granted bail and initiated legal proceedings to challenge his arrest and the police's search and seizure of evidence, a process that has stretched over a decade without resolution as of 2026.
In 2017, a New Zealand court ruled that Dotcom could be extradited to the US on fraud charges related to Megaupload. Dotcom denied any wrongdoing and has accused US authorities of pursuing a vendetta against him on behalf of politically influential Hollywood studios. In 2018, the New Zealand Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's ruling. Dotcom appealed to the Supreme Court of New Zealand, which ruled in 2020 that Dotcom could be extradited to the United States, but that he could challenge the decision through judicial review. His extradition order was eventually signed on 15 August 2024. Dotcom has remained free in New Zealand while continuing to pursue judicial review of his extradition order.
In 2013, Dotcom launched another cloud storage service called Mega, although he severed all ties with the service in 2015. He also started and funded the Internet Party. The party contested the 2014 New Zealand general election under an electoral alliance with the Mana Movement and contested the 2017 general election independently, but failed to win any seats at either election.
Dotcom was born as Kim Schmitz in 1974 in Kiel in the northern part of West Germany. His mother was Finnish, from Turku, so he holds a Finnish passport and has siblings in Finland. His father was German. He legally changed his surname to Dotcom in 2005.
Prior to his arrest in New Zealand, he enjoyed a luxurious life. In 2001, his main source of income was a company called Kimvestor, and he was known for spending his money on expensive cars and boats. During the 2000 Monaco Formula One Grand Prix, Dotcom chartered a 240-foot (73 m) yacht and used it to host parties for guests such as Prince Rainier of Monaco.
He was granted permanent residence in New Zealand on 29 November 2010. While his residency was under consideration, Dotcom was planning a fireworks show in Auckland at a cost of NZ$600,000. He leased a mansion in Coatesville, a rural community near Auckland, owned by entrepreneurs Richard and Ruth Bradley, and considered one of the most expensive homes in the country. He wanted to buy the mansion when the lease expired.
Before his arrest in New Zealand, he was the world's number-one-ranked Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 player for having the highest cumulative score in free for all mode out of more than 15 million online players.
In 2007, Dotcom met Mona Verga and married her on 10 July 2009. Dotcom had one child from a previous relationship, who was born in September 2007. Dotcom and Verga had four children together, all using IVF treatment. The couple's first child together was born in 2009. Their second child together was born in 2010. Verga gave birth to twin girls in Auckland in March 2012, a month after Dotcom was released on bail from Mt Eden prison. On 17 May 2014, Dotcom announced on Twitter that he and Verga were separated and filing for divorce. Four days earlier, Verga left her directorship positions in the Dotcom family's companies.
In March 2014, Dotcom was criticised by The Times of Israel and the New Zealand Jewish Council for his purchase of a rare signed copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, with Council president Stephen Goodman saying it was "morally unacceptable". Dotcom said the book was a financial investment and that he was the victim of a "disgusting smear campaign".
In November 2017, Dotcom announced he would marry his fiancée, Elizabeth Donnelly, on 20 January 2018; the anniversary of the raid during which he was arrested. They had been dating for two years and in 2017 moved to Queenstown to live. Their first child together was born in November 2022. This was Dotcom's sixth child, also conceived using IVF.
In 2024, Dotcom announced that he suffered a "serious stroke". In 2025, he moved to Dunedin where he is receiving medical treatment.
As a teenager, Schmitz acquired a reputation in Germany after saying that he had bypassed the security of NASA, the Pentagon and Citibank under the name of Kimble, derived from Richard Kimble, a character in the 1963 TV series The Fugitive. Some of these hacks are disputed. He also stated that he had hacked corporate PBX systems in the United States and said he was selling the access codes.
Schmitz operated a bulletin board system called "House of Coolness" where users would trade pirated software; around 1993, Schmitz was reportedly targeted by German anti-piracy lawyer Günter von Gravenreuth, and had become a paid informant. Schmitz was arrested in March 1994 for selling stolen phone numbers and held in custody for a month. He was arrested again in 1998 on more hacking charges and convicted of 11 counts of computer fraud and 10 counts of data espionage. He was given a two-year suspended sentence; the judge of the case described Schmitz's actions as "youthful foolishness".
In 2001, Schmitz bought €375,000 worth of shares of the nearly bankrupt company Letsbuyit.com [de] and subsequently announced his intention to invest €50 million in the company. The announcement caused the share value of Letsbuyit.com to jump, resulting in a €1.5 million profit for Schmitz.
Dotcom moved to Thailand to avoid investigation, but was arrested there at the request of the German embassy. In response, he allegedly pretended to kill himself online and declared through his website that he wished to be known as "His Royal Highness King Kimble the First, Ruler of the Kimpire". He was deported back to Germany where he pleaded guilty to embezzlement in November 2003 and, after five months in jail awaiting trial, again received a suspended sentence, this time of 20 months. After avoiding a prison sentence for a second time, he left Germany and moved to Hong Kong in late 2003.
Dotcom registered Kimpire Limited in December 2003, soon after moving there. He set up a network of interlinked companies, including Trendax, which he said was an artificial intelligence-driven hedge fund. However, Trendax was never registered with Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission and the company was not legally allowed to accept investments or to conduct trades. After moving to New Zealand, Dotcom did not disclose his investment activity to the Securities and Futures Commission and was fined HK$8,000.