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stretch out and formed few bonds outside the Megaupload crew. “You adapt. You don't want to get in trouble. There were some really nasty, characters in there, who had killed people, hurt people, cooked drugs, methamphetamines. There were a lot of people in there who were really dangerous. It is never good to be in a situation like that.”

There were others who were casualties of life, ill fortune and poor choices. Those who had lost jobs or had illnesses in the family and needed more money than they had available — and found ways of seeking out cash which resulted in criminal charges.

Without money to pay rent, the Dotcom Mansion was losing its finery. Mona and the children had already moved up the hill to the smaller but still grand home 5H, as it was known from the number it had been allotted as part of a neighbouring subdivision.

The possibility of returning to the mansion seemed to recede. The lease expired on February 15, and in the days before, it was stripped of any remaining large valuables by contractors working for the Official Assignee, a statutory trustee service appointed to carry out the seizure order.

There was the $150,000 hanging sculpture of a face and its smaller counterpart worth $75,000. Outside, the six-foot tall Predator statue needed to be dismantled, and a custom-made chrome motorcycle from occasional live-in designer Alex Mardikian was wheeled away. A cluster of televisions, as wide across as the Predator statue was high, were carefully lifted out of the mansion, wrapped in blankets and deposited in the back of a removal company truck.

Dotcom's concern about Mona grew. “It was really sad, really sad. I would cry a lot, being there and thinking of my family and not being with them.” Mona's comparative youth was a factor — it was one reason why he had always handled bills, household and staff issues — “so that she could focus on the kids”. The lifestyle they enjoyed was as carefully balanced as it was ostentatious. It needed constant management to function and Dotcom constantly ran through his mind the ongoing tasks which made it possible — and how it would function without the fuel of money. He also worried Mona would be vulnerable to those who would take advantage of his absence to take whatever had been left to the family.

There were those who did so, said Dotcom. One member of staff moved into the empty children's cottage one night, door jambs still splintered from the raid almost a month before. Elsewhere in the mansion, others had imposed in other ways. “Everything that was small and valuable was just gone,” says Dotcom. Cameras were taken, small keepsakes and household items which were not on seizure lists. “It was just people stealing that stuff . . . coming in here while no one was here and just taking stuff away.”

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