📸

after a week, ‘I don’t need this.’ There are many countries which would welcome me and (I could) be there tomorrow and spend my money there and fuel the workplace and the economy with what I would have to contribute. Here, they made it extremely difficult. You are dealing with people who don’t want you here and they show it to you with the way they behave.”

He said the number of hurdles he was required to clear for the residency requirement might explain why only 10 people had come in on the Investor 1 category, which required the $10 million investment. “It is ridiculous. I would say 80 per cent of people who look at that would say, ‘Sorry, you know, it is not for me. There are better places somewhere else.’”

During the course of working through the application, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, the agency charged with protecting New Zealand against threats to its security beyond the capabilities of the police, carried out their standard checks on Dotcom. These began in June, after the formal application was made, and through the course of their inquiries the SIS learned of the FBI investigation into Dotcom and Megaupload. In October, they told Immigration NZ’s intelligence office and the police about the investigation. The information appears to have brought the application to a halt on October 15.

In an October 26 report between Immigration NZ staff, it was noted that the information had to be kept secret from Dotcom and his advisors. The staff handling the application also warned if there were further delays “there is likely to be pressure exerted at higher levels”.

The SIS objections were lifted on October 28, the same day concern about the application was elevated to Immigration NZ’s deputy chief executive Nigel Bickle. In a report on the application, he was told Dotcom had set a deadline, saying he would withdraw it if a decision was not made by the end of the month.

The residence visa was approved the next day in a “special consideration” report. The report appeared to raise the FBI interest as creating a possible reason to defer the application. It pointed to information which had been suppressed because it had been supplied in confidence to New Zealand by another nation — likely the United States. It also described the information as needing to be kept secret because doing otherwise could interfere with the process of law and future rights to a fair trial. If it was the FBI’s interest, Biggs said, it “does not indicate that the applicant has been charged with any alleged offences, that he is actually under investigation for any alleged offences or that he is wanted for questioning about any alleged offences”.

Cooper was told on October 31 that the outcome was positive — news which came on a Sunday and was just inside Dotcom’s deadline.

65

📸