New Zealand Judge Declares Raids of Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom’s Mansion Illegal

A New Zealand judge has declared that the raid on Kim Dotcom’s mansion and seizure of personal property was illegal and that the warrants were invalid.

In January of this year mass filing sharing website was shut down and founder and executive Kim Dotcom was arrested. Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion was raided by local police and $750,000 in assets was seized. This caused a turmoil through other file sharing websites on the web as many were pulling back or in BT Junkie’s case voluntarily shutting down.

Things may be looking up for Kim Dotcom as we reported a few weeks ago he has won back most of his assets. His bank account with $300,000 has been unfrozen and his $250,000 Mercedez was returned to him.

In a recent development, as reported by Ars Technica, a New Zealand judge has declared the raids on Dotcom’s mansion as illegal. Accoriding to the report the F.B.I. has been developing a case against Dotcom for two years and were planning on prosecuting him in Virgina but needed New Zealand authorities to arrest him and search his property. The New Zealand police extracted Dotcom, who was hiding in his mansion’s panic room, and presented him with a judicial warrant which was a confusing document because it wasn’t specific in what country he was being prosecuted under or exactly what the authorities were looking for. Warrants need to be specific or else they will be deemed illegal which is what happened here.

It is unclear how the rest of Dotcom’s case will proceed. The 150TB of data that was seized has already been sent to the United States for the F.B.I.’s case. Megaupload remains shut down and Dotcom’s trial and exoneration to the United States is still up in the air.