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internet and he knew, even then, there was no restoring it. “The initial hit was really hard and really painful. But already on the first night in jail I put all the pieces together and I put it on a scale and I thought, ‘How can they get away with it?’ I figured out really quickly this wasn’t about the actual case — this was all about the takedown. This was all about destroying Megaupload and taking it offline.”

Sitting there that night, Dotcom said he came to the belief the decision to destroy Megaupload was made by the United States with the knowledge the charges would not stick but it would have the effect of killing the website. “They still got what they wanted, which was the takedown to appease Hollywood and to have a smooth re-election campaign for Obama.”

“I knew we couldn’t lose it. I knew we had enough evidence to show we had all these legal documents that were exchanged with our lawyers . . . the advice we got . . . we have always been co-operating.”

The underlying thrust of the indictment was to prove criminal intent — a key factor in gaining convictions.

Dotcom sat in the cell that night, recalling steps taken over the years that he believed helped the company to stay legal. “I remember all those emails that I sent out to the staff of Megaupload saying, ‘We’ve got to be DMCA compliant’, ‘We have to make sure everything goes down swiftly’. I remembered the email exchanges with lawyers. I remembered all those things and I thought: ‘There is no way in hell I’m going to let them get away with it.’ ”

The doors on the men’s cells slid back shortly after dawn. They emerged, one by one, except for Dotcom. Van der Kolk looked in and found him in an immaculately tidy cell. The blanket had been neatly folded and laid out, the sheet on the cot smoothed back. Dotcom was sitting on the bed, back against the wall, reading the indictment. For some reason, he alone of the group had been allowed to keep a copy.

Dotcom looked up, saw his co-defendants and held up the indictment aloft smiling.

“I’ve read it all,” he said. “It is all bullshit.”

The group trooped in, one after another to shake his hand, greeting him with: “Happy birthday.” Dotcom had turned 38 in jail.

Then they opened the indictment and went to work getting free.

IN JAIL THE accused dissected the claims made against them. The discussion included emails intercepted by the FBI and included in the indictment. Van der Kolk came in for criticism for the “modern day

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