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Dotcom said the way the raid was conducted, and the force displayed, would have had a chilling effect on any lawyers. “But Greg knew me. This is what made the difference. He knew me and he knew I am a good guy and I am law-abiding and I make sure everything I do is proper because I didn't want to get in trouble.

“What they didn't account for and what they didn't expect would happen is that a firm like Simpson Grierson would stand up for us and say, ‘We want to fight for this guy’ and that Paul Davison, one of the most respected lawyers in this country, is going to take this case on a deferred basis without payment. Who does that? Lawyers don't do that.

“They would have gotten away with their whole plan if that didn't happen. And the likelihood of lawyers working for free? Everyone will tell you no way.”

TOWERS WAS ESCORTED into an office serving as an interview room at the North Shore Police Station. He's the Kiwi version of a Swiss banker — immaculately dressed, perfectly composed and precise in all his dealings. “We're going to take care of this,” he told Dotcom immediately. “We've found the best criminal defence lawyer in the country. We're going to fight this for you.”

Dotcom: “There was not even a discussion about money. I said, ‘Look, the way I understand it, there are no funds available.’ It wasn't even the issue.”

Towers had called the firm's commercial litigator, Willy Akel. The defamation expert, who once represented former Prime Minister Helen Clark, had acted for Dotcom in his action against the Herald on Sunday. Akel, in turn, rang Paul Davison QC, one of the country's best criminal litigators. It was the perfect call. Davison once described his clients' usual first words as: “This is not what happened, there is another side to this. Please listen.”

Davison was there within an hour. “We sat down to talk about the whole case,” says Dotcom, “and I explained to them how everything we have done is to fulfil our obligations under the DMCA, that we had legal advice, and they decided to take this case on and work and sort out payment later.

“That is really something which saved us. If they didn't do that, I wouldn't be where we are today. I would probably not have bail, we would have had no choice but to accept extradition because the only way for us to unseize funds . . . would have been by being in the court in the US. You can't do that remotely. They were betting everything on

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