Piracy accused Kim Dotcom says US government officials held accounts with his file-sharing website Megaupload which is at the centre of the world's largest allegations of online copyright breaches.
US officials allege Megaupload has deprived copyright holders of movies and music of at least U$S500 million (NZ$602m).
Hitting back at these charges, Megaupload founder Dotcom, who is on bail awaiting a US extradition hearing in August, told file-sharing news website Torrentfreak.com: "Guess what? We found a large number of Mega accounts from US government officials including the Department of Justice and the US Senate."
Dotcom told Torrentfreak his legal team is working to "reunite" users of the website with data they had stored on Megaupload.
The site was shut down shortly after Dotcom and his three co-accused were arrested on January 20 after a spectacular police raid on his $30-million rented mansion in Coatesville, north of Auckland.
"Megaupload's legal team is working hard to reunite our users with their data. We are negotiating with the Department of Justice to allow all Mega users to retrieve their data," he says.
"I hope we will soon have permission to give them [US officials] and the rest of our users access to their files."
Dotcom is facing internet piracy charges in the US.
His New Zealand-based co-accused are Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato who are all on bail.
NZN