That one backfired on him when hacker pranksters calling themselves Fluffy Bunny posted a lewd picture on his website.
Sought by German authorities over the LetsBuyIt scam, he fled to Thailand In January 2002, writing on his website that "A German high-tech fairy tale is to end."
He then posted a troubling message suggesting he would commit suicide on his 28th birthday:
"Enough is Enough. Kim Schmitz will die next Monday. See it on this website live and for free. When the countdown is over, Kim steps into a new world and wants you to see it."
Authorities got to him first, arresting him at a Bangkok airport a few days before his birthday. He had meanwhile posted another strange message to his site: Henceforth he would answer to the title of "His Royal Highness King Kimble the First, Ruler of the Kimpire."
In May that year he was back in a Munich court, convicted of manipulating stock prices in the LetsBuyIt scam. Again he got lucky, avoiding jail but drawing a fine of 100,000 euros ($130,000).
He also claimed to have learned something about the perils of the spotlight. "My mistake was that I embraced the media and gave them the stories they wanted," he wrote on the filesharing-news website TorrentFreak.
But it didn't take him long to get back in the fast lane. George Gurley, a reporter writing for Vanity Fair magazine, came across him at the 2004 Gumball 3000 rally, an unofficial European road race for jet-setters, driving at 250 kph (155 mph).
"He's a controversial figure here, part buffoon, part Dr. Evil, but a skilled and very fast driver," the reporter wrote.
The next year he launched his most significant venture, registering Megaupload.com in Hong Kong. And he reinvented himself, legally changing his name first to Kim Tim Jim Vestor, then to Kim Dotcom.
"Hong Kong, what an awesome place to do business and to host my new phantom persona," he wrote on TorrentFreak. "People there leave you alone and they are happy for your success."
It took a few years before authorities began paying attention to Megaupload.
In 2009, Forbes magazine wrote that little-known Carpathia Hosting had increased its business 100-fold almost overnight, and was suddenly generating 0.6 percent of all online traffic, at the time twice the bandwidth consumed by Facebook. It was because the hosting site had some new clients: Megaupload.com, Megarotic.com, Megaclick.com, Megavideo.com.
"Forbes readers probably haven't heard of them," Craig Labovitz of Arbor Networks, the Internet security provider, told the magazine. "Almost every teenager has."
The sites, Forbes said, were open to anyone with little or no money to download songs, TV shows or movies.
His notoriety again on the rise, Dotcom nevertheless managed to secure New Zealand residency in 2010, under a scheme to attract wealthy investors to the country. He invested 10 million New Zealand dollars ($8.4 million) in government bonds and sponsored a fireworks show in Auckland, the main city, to the delight of many including the mayor.
He leased one of the country's plushest mansions, worth $24 million. He also appeared to be settling down, having married Mona, a Filipino, and had three children with her.
In early 2011, U.S. porn site Perfect 10 sued Dotcom and Megaupload, claiming he was running a pirate site engaged in massive copyright infringement. Megaupload responded that it operated a virtual locker service, and had no control over what its users uploaded. The company added that it routinely removed any offending content whenever it received a notice of infringement.
The case was settled out of court. But Dotcom's problems were not over.
Kevin Suh, the senior vice president of content protection at the Motion Picture Association of America, said the association filed a detailed complaint against Megaupload in 2010, which triggered a federal investigation. Prosecutors claim the "mega conspiracy" netted Dotcom and others $175 million in illicit advertising revenue and download fees.
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