John McAfee, the founder of the McAfee antivirus software, was found dead in his cell in a Spanish jail on Wednesday, June 23. He was 75 years old at the time. The business tycoon’s death came just hours after a Spanish court issued a judgment in favor of his extradition to the United States. He was facing criminal accusations for tax fraud.
According to reports, a judicial delegation is currently examining the cause of death, with early results pointing to suicide. Although the statement didn’t mention McAfee by name and simply claimed the dead man was a “75-year-old US citizen awaiting extradition to his country,” sources in the Catalan administration told the Associated Press that the dead inmate was McAfee.
Why was John McAfee behind the bars?
McAfee was charged with tax evasion in Tennessee in October of last year after failing to declare revenue from cryptocurrency promotion, speaking engagements, and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary. In the same month, the cops also arrested him at Barcelona’s international airport and were awaiting the outcome of the extradition hearing.
The court’s decision handed down on Monday, June 21, was out in public on Wednesday, June 23. It might be challenged. Any final extradition order would still need to have the support of the Spanish Cabinet. McAfee described the allegations against him in the US as politically motivated. It was during a hearing in a Spanish court earlier this month. If the allegations proved to be true in the United States, McAfee could face a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
Conspiracies
The death of John McAfee in a Spanish jail enraged American conspiracy theorists, who latched on 9-month-old tweets in which he likewise expressed fear for his life. While in a Barcelona prison on Oct. 15, 2020, McAfee sent out a tweet that read:
Jeffrey Epstein‘s death also sparked wild conjecture among QAnon conspiracy theorists. They think he was assassinated to protect his influential friends and associates. Followers of QAnon believe that an elite group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles manages America. Another McAfee tweet on Nov. 30, 2019, read,
Nearly an hour following his death was publicly out, McAfee’s official Instagram posted an image of a bold letter “Q”. In January 2019, McAfee also uploaded a video claiming he was evading U.S. legal authorities by surviving on a boat in international waters.
“I have not paid taxes for eight years. I have not filed returns. Every year I tell the IRS ‘I am not filing a return, I have no intention of doing so, come and find me,” he said in a Twitter video. In a Jan. 3, 2019 tweet, he wrote, “I have not filed a tax return for 8 years. Why? 1: taxation is illegal. 2: I paid tens of millions already and received Jack S*** in services. 3. I’m done making money. I live off of cash from McAfee Inc. My net income is negative. But I am a prime target for the IRS. Here I am.”
Cryptocurrency mishap
McAfee was charged with conspiracy to conduct fraud and money laundering by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in March. According to the accusations, McAfee and his bodyguard, Jimmy Gale Watson Jr., were allegedly responsible for purchasing cryptocurrency assets before advertising them to McAfee’s million-plus Twitter followers. Then they sold off the assets after McAfee’s tweets increased their worth.
Cryptocurrency firms also allegedly paid the two over $11 million to advertise their assets on Twitter, according to the accusations. According to the US Department of Justice, these payments were never public to McAfee’s Twitter followers or cryptocurrency buyers.
Other charges on John McAfee
Then, McAfee went into hiding in November 2012 after being a “person of interest” in the brutal murder of American Gregory Faull in Belize, Central America. Faull and McAfee were both living on Ambergris Caye, a small island off the coast of Belize. Faull was dead in a pool of his own blood.
McAfee said he didn’t kill Faull. But Belize’s Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, described McAfee as “paranoid” and publicly urged him to comply with the police. “I don’t want to be unkind. But he seems to be extremely paranoid, I would go as far as to say bonkers,” Barrow said. Belizean police had also detained McAfee earlier in 2012 for allegedly possessing guns and drugs. Police later released him without pressing charges.