Its employees have been taken into custody
File-sharing site Megaupload, based in Hong Kong, was shut down by US officials, following allegations of piracy.
The website, which was set up in 2005, also once got a ranking on the internet as 13th most visited one.
Megaupload, though, claimed the allegations against it were "grotesquely overblown", adding they were ready for a dialogue with any content industry players who desire to bank on its popularity.
The move comes a day after hundreds of websites blacked out in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).
According to the US Justic Department's statement, two co-founders of the file-sharing site Kim Schmitz and Mathias Ortmann were taken into custody in Auckland, New Zealand, along with a couple of other employees, while three others still at large, said the BBC.
The suspects are accused of being members of 'the Mega Conspiracy', who are involved in criminal copyright infringement and large-scale money laundering.
The Justice Department alleged it was the largest of criminal copyright cases ever brought to notice, wherein a content distribution site was involved in facilitating 'intellectual property crime.'
The indictment said megaupload.com with its shell company Vestor Limited made around $175m in proceeds while causing a loss half-a-billion dollars to copyright owners.
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