Three months after dozens of armed police swooped on Kim Dotcom's Auckland mansion, arresting him and several of his colleagues, allegations by the German-born internet tycoon about political donations threaten to destabilise New Zealand's governing coalition.
The scandal centres on a donation Dotcom says he made to John Banks, currently minister for small business and regulatory reform, during an unsuccessful 2010 campaign for the Auckland mayoralty.
Banks, who was elected to parliament a year later, had asked Dotcom to split a suggested $50,000 (£26,000) donation into two parts, so that it would fall beneath the maximum level for anonymous contributions, Dotcom told local media.
Under New Zealand electoral law it is an offence for a recipient to classify any donation over $1,000 as anonymous if he or she knows the donor's identity.
Dotcom remains under house arrest in his $30m mansion awaiting extradition hearings over US charges of copyright and racketeering related to his Megaupload website. The US justice department accuses Dotcom and others of complicity in widespread online piracy of films, music and other copyright material.
Megaupload was the world's biggest file-sharing site, accounting for an estimated 4% of internet traffic, before US authorities ordered its closure.
Dotcom told TV3's Campbell Live programme that he had flown Banks to his mansion in one of his helicopters.
While Banks did accept he had met with Dotcom, he had no memory of that visit, and "can't recall discussing money", he said. Banks is the sole MP for the rightwing ACT party. He was elected in the Epsom district after the National leader and prime minister John Key joined him for a stage-managed, symbolic cup of tea during last November's election campaign.
If Dotcom's claims are vindicated, Banks is likely to have to resign his seat. While a National or ACT candidate would almost certainly win a byelection in the blue-ribbon Epsom constituency, it would be another blow for Key, a prime minister who has encountered a steady supply of controversies since his re-election for a second term at the end of last year.
Appearing on the TVNZ channel on Sunday, Banks refused to answer specific questions about donations to his mayoral campaign, claiming it was all a "media beat-up". "I can tell you that when I signed my declaration for the mayoralty I signed it in good faith in the knowledge as a justice of the peace as true and correct," he said. "I have nothing to fear and nothing to hide and I welcome the inquiry and everything will come out in the wash."
In the face of demands by the opposition Labour party that Banks be stood down from his ministerial portfolios pending an inquiry, Key said he was satisfied with assurances from the minister that he had acted within the law.
The scandal came as the US judge overseeing the case expressed doubt that it would make it to court, pointing to questions about whether Dotcom had been appropriately served with criminal papers.
"I frankly don't know that we are ever going to have a trial in this matter," district court judge Liam O'Brady told the FBI, according to a report in the New Zealand Herald.