Amsterdam server farm raided in Megaupload case [January 20, 2012]

The raids and arrests in the FBI onslaught on file sharing site Megaupload.com have caught more than just a Dutchman programmer - there were raids at Leaseweb server farms in Amsterdam and Haarlem on Thursday, according to the Parool.

The paper says Mega Conspiracy, the company behind Megaupload, rents 630 servers from Leaseweb at a cost, according to the FBI, of €65m. Some of the money was paid via Rabobank and ABN Amro, the paper says.

'It was a pretty big surprise,' Leaseweb's Alex de Joode told the paper. 'Up until Thursday night we'd never heard a thing about Megupload committing criminal acts - not even from the American investigators.'

Finance ministry officials seized 60 servers and Leaseweb has closed down access to the others, taking Megaupload off air, the paper says. The company apparently wants to cooperate fully with the inquiry.

Little wonder. Dutchman Bram van der Kolk (alias Bramco) and the three others arrested in New Zealand face extradition to the US and jail terms of up to 50 years.

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