Dotcom and my death
Former Kim Dotcom associate Finn Batato was facing decades in jail on charges of mass copyright violation as part of the Megaupload case. In this exclusive interview for the 10th anniversary of the FBI-inspired raid, he talks to David Fisher about how he’s been dropped from the extradition case because he’s swapped a life sentence for a death sentence.
Finn Batato is back in Germany, the only one of those arrested in the Megaupload raid to escape New Zealand’s borders in the decade since they were arrested.
It has taken cancer and the prospect of imminent death to get away. In an exclusive interview, Batato, 48, says he will return to these shores because 10 years fighting extradition to the United States was time enough to build a new life in New Zealand.
And, he says, he loves that life — even as it threatens to slip away.
Batato came to New Zealand in January 2012 for the birthday of his long-time friend, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. It was intended to be a quick visit but coincided with an FBI-inspired raid that saw Batato and Dotcom arrested, along with Megaupload coders Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk.
A decade on, after drawn-out battles across the justice system, the Supreme Court has cleared the way for the signing of the extradition warrant. It’s the document that threatens to put the Megaupload defendants before a US court and, potentially, in jail for decades.
It’s also a document that no longer carries Batato’s name.
After a decade of living with the possibility of a jail sentence so long it could be life in prison, Batato is now on death row.
When cancer first arrived, it was an unwelcome intrusion into the life and the merged family he was building with Simone Meier. Together they are a family of six. Batato came into the relationship with two boys and she with a daughter.
Initially, the cancer was beaten back. Blood tests and scans offered Batato a clean bill of health. In that cancer-free space, their child, Luca, was conceived. “It was a happy moment for us,” he said.
But between then and Luca’s arrival on October 31, the cancer returned with a vengeance. It left Batato fighting two monumental battles — against the United States Government and its extradition efforts, and a literal fight for his life.
He found himself taking a step previously unimaginable. “I just picked up the phone and used quite a pragmatic approach and called the prosecution. I said, ‘look guys, we know this case is questionable but I am now facing death’.
“I urge you to relay to the US that they should really drop this case [against me]. I don’t think anyone wants me on their conscience.”
Batato provided his medical records. The FBI went further and contacted his medical team for verification.
“Maybe they wanted to make sure I was really going to die.”
And that was the start of a quick disentanglement from the case that had dominated his life. First his passport was returned, followed by the court formally discharging him as an extradition target. The removal of international travel alerts finally cleared a way back to Germany.
“It felt like home again very quickly,” he said from Munich. “I’ve families in the two furthest apart places in the world.”
For Batato, the return offered much. Like the others arrested a decade ago, family bonds have been stretched as time went on. “It took away time with our families,” he said. “Ten years is an extraordinary long time. That is already a sentence in itself.”
At the outset, parents made the journey to New Zealand. As time went on, everyone got older. Says Batato: “I know, every one of [the defendants] has a parent who is in a critical medical condition. [The US] is taking away time with their children.”
Batato had not seen his mother, Frauke, for seven years. “We all love our mothers and they are all not in good shape.
“That’s a price you don’t want to pay — to not be able to see your parents, your mother, who gave birth to you. It was a last chance to see her. She doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry since I landed. She’s been on an emotional roller coaster.”
The return also offered the prospect of medical treatment not available in New Zealand. Typically, advances abroad take a few years to translate into our smaller medical system.
“I’m the lucky one in an unlucky situation that I’m able to receive more
‘I’m always focusing on the positive things. I consider myself to be alive until I actually die.’
advanced help with my medical condition.”
Batato talks of luck, this man with terminal cancer. Lucky to find Meier, “lucky to raise a family”, lucky to be marketing director for NZVapor, lucky the company hired him despite the extradition case and had continued to support him since cancer arrived. Lucky to have a nice house to live in, lucky to be able to travel.
“I’m always focusing on the positive things. I consider myself to be alive until I actually die. As long as someone tells me there are still avenues to go down and explore, I will. And I’m not going to leave anything out.”
It’s a mindset Batato said was necessary to face down cancer. Alongside the medical options, he’s set his mind on reaching the future through an exercise of strong will and mental energy.
There’s no denying the reality of it. He’s carrying about 20kg of fluid. “I’m happy if I can walk 50m without catching my breath.” He had visibly aged although, when this is pointed out, said: “Four weeks prior I looked like a dead person. When I look in the mirror now, I’m quite pleased.”
Batato’s positive mindset doesn’t extend to the case against Megaupload and the extraordinary diversion it brought into his life. Documents obtained through the case show he was almost an afterthought to the FBI, added to the indictment only a few months before the raid.
“It is my prime decade, businesswise.” That sweet spot decade bridging one’s 30s and 40s — “I was right there. I was very successful and hard working. I was flying around the world and making sure our sales team was working. That was taken away. I’m quite unhappy about it.
“I would like the people who did this to think how they would feel if that happened to them or their children.”
When he talks of “those people”, he talks of former Prime Minister John Key and current US President Joe Biden, who was Barack Obama’s Vice-President at the time and a key conduit between the White House and the Hollywood lobby.
Batato, unsurprisingly, frames the case against those who built Megaupload as one built on falsehood or misunderstanding, or simply jury-rigged to give the US an example to persecute and chill nontraditional means of media distribution.
It’s an argument that’s sat at the centre of the decade’s extradition battles. They argue that copyrighted content was taken down when reported, that they provided a service and it was users who used that service to traffic content that belonged to others.
Those accused have fought to draw out and challenge the facts in NZ courts. The courts have largely rejected their efforts on the basis they are charged with managing the extradition and not the eventual trial.
When arrested, Batato said he expected to be back in Munich by Christmas. The misunderstanding, he said, was expected to be straightened out and life would resume.
It didn’t happen that way. The FBI presented the case as a US$500 million fraud, saying seized communications showed the Megaupload team knew they were profiting at the expense of copyright holders. Batato is dismissive — cherrypicked evidence, he said, to cast the defendants in a poor light.
There was much about how it unfolded that created scepticism among the defendants. Looking back to a decade ago, Batato remained incredulous over the use of New Zealand’s elite anti-terrorism force in a helicopter dawn raid.
“Right from the start I thought it was all overdone and a show was put up to set an example. Even with the raid, they could have just knocked on the door and we would have answered any questions.
“They wanted to make a point — and it wasn’t about legality.” By the defendants’ construction, there was no case to answer.
Though not represented in many of the hearings, Batato studied the evidence and the law to understand the case he and the others faced. On that basis, he formed the belief the Megaupload case was the White House’s “Plan B” after it failed to push through two significant law changes intended to tackle internet piracy.
In many ways Batato was always the odd one out. His financial position meant he was often in court without a lawyer. Of those arrested in New Zealand, he alone was not a shareholder of Megaupload. As marketing manager, he earned good money at $400,000 a year but that was 20 per cent of the lowest-paid coaccused, Bram van der Kolk, and one per cent of what Dotcom pulled in.
Although Batato has slipped the extradition case in a terminal trade, he believed none of them should have been indicted.
Look at what happened since the arrest, he said. The four built cloud storage site Mega, which had 250 million registered users and was now operated by Ortmann and van der Kolk. Dotcom had a new digital currency business while Batato worked for NZVapor.
“We are not a bunch of mafia members. We have vision and competence to pull off something really meaningful. There is no case and it’s just not fair.”
Batato said his belief in justice would have demanded lawbreakers be held to account — but the way he had operated and the environment in which Megaupload operated left him convinced he had committed no crime.
“My name is at play here . . . It really irks me that we’re in this and someone is trying to make like we are criminals. I don’t like that. I didn’t break the law.”
‘They could have just knocked on the door and we would have answered any questions.’