Kim Dotcom

Born

1974-01-21

Birthplace

Kiel, Germany

Biography

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.