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Dotcom gave ultimatum to NZ officials

Posted on 15 Mar at 6 PM Tags: Currency Exchange, Immigration, Working in New Zealand, Property,

'Billionaire' Kim Dotcom threatened to revoke his request to live in New Zealand unless immigration officials agreed to meet his deadline, reveals new documents.

Officials approved the Megaupload creator residency last year after determining the money he might bring to the country compensated for concerns about criminal convictions in his homeland Germany for stock-price manipulation and computer fraud, reports the NZ Herald.

The documents also revealed that Dotcom's fortune may have been exaggerated during the application procedure. David Cooper, Dotcom's immigration agent, described Kim as a billionaire in his application papers, a phrase immigration officials echoed in their own assessments. Cooper has since said that the description originated with Dotcom.

Subsequent asset seizures imply Dotcom's affluence to be considerably less than $1 billion. Before being granted residency, officials recorded that Dotcom had made charitable donations in New Zealand and was preparing to sponsor a fireworks show of $600,000 in Auckland.

Immigration official Chris Biggs wrote that Kim had already made a large economic contribution to New Zealand and will make more investments. However on October 26, 2010, immigration manager Gareth Grigg told his colleague Mr Cooper that unless Dotcom receives a decision by 1 November he would “walk away" and consider Australia or Canada instead.
The NZD exchange rates on 15/03/2012 were as follows: GBP NZD = 1.9173, EUR NZD = 1.5968, USD NZD = 1.221, AUD NZD = 1.2843, CHF NZD = 1.3223, INR NZD = 0.0243, AED NZD = 0.3327, MXN NZD = 0.0963, CAD NZD = 1.2304, ZAR NZD = 0.1603, RUB NZD = 0.0415, . See today's New Zealand Dollar Exchange Rate
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