Rest in Peace Finn Batato

Thank you for many great memories.

On the 11th of June 2022 my best friend Finn passed away.

Finn was my best friend and a great family man. His top priority in life was the happiness of the people he cared about. He was a wonderful host who loved to cook for his friends and family. His Spaghetti Bolognese was legendary. Finn had the ability to transform worries into hope with his endless optimism and positivity. Finn’s untimely death is a tragic and painful loss for everyone who knew him. He was such a positive force in our lives.

When I first met Finn at the Skyline bar in Munich I was 18 years old and just moved to the city. I was sitting alone at my table and in front of me was one of the first oversized Motorola ‘Brick’ mobile phones. Nobody had mobile phones at that time and it caught Finn’s attention. He approached me with his charming and humorous personality, we started chatting and that was the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

A big part of our lives was the desire to accumulate great experiences at a young age with adventurous travel, delicious food and high speed driving to loud music. Finn played a big role in achieving those dreams and they would not have turned into so much fun without him. One of the coziest restaurants in Munich, Trader Vic’s, became our daily hangout and from here we planned our adventures together with Sven and Mathias, our other best friends.

Sven was in charge of logistics. He got us around the world first class and into the best hotel suites at great discounts. Sven wrote a software that scanned all the top airline and hotel offerings. Whenever they made a typo on pricing Sven’s software made an instant booking. Sometimes he would get us ‘around the world’ first class tickets and Presidential Suites in the best hotels for 10% of the original price.

Mathias was in charge of documenting our adventures and he was our personal search engine. He had an answer for everything. Sven and Mathias are tech geniuses with an intellect to admire. Our huge differences in character and social skills resulted in endless teasing of one another. The sarcasm was next level too. We were an odd dream team that had a lot of fun together. In our 20+ years of travel and fun Mathias took thousands of photos and videos. In the late 90’s we started a website to share our amazing stories online with photo galleries. It attracted thousands of daily visitors before social media was even a thing. Finn took the prize for best dressed. He had such excellent taste.

Being spontaneous was one of Finn’s great gifts. For example: We would finish dinner and he would say “let’s drive to Monaco tonight and let’s be there before sunrise”. The challenge: It was already 10pm and Monaco was nearly 800 km away. We got there in time because our average cruising speed was 250 km/h on empty highways at night.

Finn was an excellent driver and we have driven over 100,000 km together, mostly at ridiculous speeds, including a Gumball 3000 rally through Russia which we finished in first place. Finn had a blast when we rented the Nurburg Ring to race with Formula One legend Kimi Raikkonen. Finn and I shared several near death experiences in fast cars and on jet skies, always pushing the limits. It was a miracle that we survived our youthful craziness for adrenaline kicks. Hopefully our kids will not take similar risks.

Finn was a gifted flirter. He had this thing we called the ‘eye-lock mode’ where his eyes would be in perfect sync with the eyes of the female he was flirting with. His epic one-liners scored him many memorable encounters. Wherever we travelled, from the Côte d'Azur to Havana to the Bavarian mountains, prince charming always scored a princess. He was an old school gentlemen and the ladies adored him.

The countless hours that Finn and I spent laughing and enjoying life together will always be one of the highlights of my life. But Finn was also there when things were not so great. When I was navigating the complications of my first big love and all my relationships that followed, Finn was there. When I decided to leave Germany and move to Asia, Finn was there. Whenever I had a new business idea, Finn was there and when I was vulnerable, Finn was there too.

Above everything else Finn was a great family man. His strong bond with his lovely parents and brother became a blueprint for how I wanted my family to be. Finn’s parents raised him to be an honest, generous and a caring person and they did an amazing job, they made me feel like a son too. Whenever I did an all-night gaming session I would hop into my car in the morning and drive to the bakery to get bread rolls and have breakfast with Finn’s family. They became my family too.

Finn’s harmonious family life was dramatically interrupted when he flew to New Zealand a decade ago, in 2012, to celebrate my birthday. Finn was in charge of advertising at our Mega group of websites. To our surprise Finn, Mathias, Sven and I were charged by the U.S. Government with being members of the so called ‘Mega-conspiracy’, a fictitious copyright mafia.

It was the beginning of the end for Finn. The New Zealand Government did not allow him to leave the country. They kept him away from his family, his girlfriend and his friends in Germany for what legal experts say is nothing more than a civil copyright dispute. A Harvard Law professor opined that the U.S. allegations are novel and not supported by U.S. criminal law. People around the world have seen the unprecedented military style raid on my family home. It made the raid against Osama Bin Laden look small and it became a global embarrassment for New Zealand.

The U.S. claims that we are criminally liable for the copyright infringement by our users. But how could we be criminally responsible for the actions of others? Internet users were wondering why our sites were targeted while YouTube and dozens of other U.S. sites were left unharmed. They too hosted copyright infringement by their users under the protection of U.S. copyright law. Just like them Megaupload took down 99.99% of all infringements that were reported to us. The big difference was that Hollywood threatened Obama and Biden not to support their re-election campaign unless they destroyed Megaupload. Learn more about the corruption here: The truth about the Megaupload case

New Zealand ignored its own laws in exchange for “brownie points” from the White House and Hollywood. Several Courts have found that the New Zealand and U.S. Government broke the law numerous times in our case. The former Prime Minister of New Zealand had to apologize for illegally spying on us. Most recently our U.S. Judge was removed from our case because he was a Disney shareholder and worked for Disney when he was still a lawyer. All of his rulings in our case are tainted and the U.S. Department of Justice picked this Disney Judge to execute their mind-blowing injustice against us.

Put yourself in Finn’s shoes and imagine the pain he had to endure being stuck in a different country. He found himself in a decade long nightmare, being separated from his loved ones, losing his home in Munich, losing his girlfriend, losing all of his possessions and losing the social fabric that was his life. Finn did nothing illegal and his accusers know that. He was given 10 years of hell followed by a death sentence.

Finn’s life was stolen from him. He was one of the strongest people I ever met. But he suffered quietly. He never wanted to burden anyone. He used to be a casual drinker on the weekends but he began drinking every day to drown his sadness and stress. It made him sick.

His tormentors only stopped harassing Finn after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was allowed to travel to Germany to spend time with his family and he was able to have dinner with his friends at our favorite restaurant one last time. He was happy when he rang me from Germany. Finn returned to New Zealand recently to try a third chemotherapy but it didn’t work.

Finn started a new family in New Zealand. Fortunately he met his soulmate and true love Simone in his final years. They got married recently. He is leaving 3 young children and his loving wife behind. His youngest son was born just a few months ago. His family travelled from Germany to be with Finn and he passed away peacefully.

I love you Finn. Rest in peace.

Let me name those who killed my best friend, an innocent man: The U.S. and New Zealand Government. Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hollywood henchman Chris Dodd. U.S. prosecutors Neil MacBride (Biden’s former lawyer) and Jay Prabhu. Former Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key. Former Attorney General of New Zealand Chris Finlayson. Hollywood and their Disney Judge Liam O’Grady. Shame on them.

But what really breaks my heart is that it was my idea of Megaupload that killed my best friend. Remember the times when you could not attach large files to emails? That’s why I invented Megaupload. So people could upload a large file to a server to get a link and then simply provide that link via email. Problem solved. I really wish I never thought of that.

Our final cruise.

Finn asked me to vent about the inaction of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in our case. She used to care a lot before she became Prime Minister.

Here we go:

Dear Jacinda, why did you not make an effort to end this madness? After each new episode of Government unlawfulness in our case Finn and I wondered why you didn’t do anything? We thought you were not made from the same cloth as your predecessor, the guy who sold New Zealand’s soul to the U.S. for a photo opportunity with Obama.

Remember what you and I handed out to the audience at the Santa Dotcom play in The Basement Theater? What happened to your defiance against the copyright cartel and their puppets at the National Party? Do you remember what I thought you would become? We believed in your motto of kindness. Where has it gone?

We always enjoyed Question Time at Parliament when the Labour Party was still in opposition. I remember the never-ending attacks against National and the former Prime Minister about the constant flow of lies, lawlessness and bad faith in our case. Labour nailed those questions. John Key’s red faced replies and lies became popular Internet memes. Labour capitalized from the injustice against us. Then you gained power and quickly forgot about this stain on New Zealand’s history. Why is that?

Want to help? Just ask your Attorney General to comply with New Zealand law and provide our legal team with the documents we are legally entitled to. Your Government is still unlawfully withholding them despite a judgement from your highest Court in our favor. You must have missed that? You wouldn’t be complicit?

Please give your Chief Justice a Supreme Court bench she can work with. It seems so obvious that the handpicked appointments by former Attorney General Finlayson were made for his interests. Why not dilute team Finlayson to give New Zealand law some meaning again?

I saw you were granted an audience with Joe Biden at the White House last week. Congratulations. Did you smell the sulfur in his breath? And how about that Black Rock meeting? Was the Borg assimilation process of New Zealand completed?

None of that may matter soon:

Kim Dotcom @KimDotcom

🧵 This may be the most important thread I ever make. Big picture stuff about the major global collapse that is coming. I will try to help you understand why the future is not what we’re hoping for. It's worse than most can imagine. Our leaders know. But what are they planning?

The End