Crime

Two men who helped run the once wildly popular pirating website Megaupload were each sentenced by a New Zealand court on Thursday to more than two years in prison.

The sentencing of Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk ended an 11-year legal battle by the men to avoid extradition to the United States on more serious charges that included racketeering.

The men last year struck a deal with prosecutors from New Zealand and the U.S. in which they pleaded guilty to being part of a criminal group and causing artists to lose money by deception.

Meanwhile Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, is continuing to fight the U.S. charges and threat of extradition. He has said he expects his former colleagues to testify against him as part of the deal they struck.

U.S. prosecutors say Megaupload raked in at least $175 million — mainly from people who used the site to illegally download songs, television shows and movies -— before the FBI shut it down in early 2012 and arrested Dotcom and other company officers.

Looks like things could come to a head for Kim.