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On Oct. 26, 2010, an immigration manager, Gareth Grigg, sent a memo to a colleague saying that he'd been advised by Cooper that "Mr. Dotcom wants a decision on his application by 1 November 2010 or he will walk away" and consider his residency options in Australia or Canada. He noted Dotcom's charitable contributions, but also noted in a section titled "Risks" that: "Mr. Dotcom may be seen to be controlling the processing of his application;" that he may "attract
'buying residence' criticism;" and that proceeding with the application without all the outstanding information "may amount to Mr. Dotcom being afforded special treatment because of his wealth." Nevertheless, six days later -- on Dotcom's Nov. 1 deadline -- New Zealand immigration officials decided to grant him residency. Two months after he was granted residency, Dotcom was convicted in Hong Kong on several counts of failing to disclose his shareholding levels to the Securities and Futures Commission, and was fined 8,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,031). New Zealand immigration authorities decided the convictions were too minor to consider deporting Dotcom. In another development, Dotcom this week told file-sharing news website TorrentFreak that "Guess what
-- we found a large number of Mega accounts from U.S. government officials, including the Department of Justice and U.S. Senate." Megaupload was shut down in January when Dotcom was arrested. "I hope we will soon have permission to give them and the rest of our users access to their files," Dotcom told the website. Dotcom did not suggest that government officials illegally shared copyrighted material. U.S. prosecutors allege that illegal downloads on Dotcom's website cost movie makers and songwriters some half a billion dollars. Dotcom, who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz, has said U.S. authorities have cherry-picked evidence in their indictment in a way that is "misleading and malicious."
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