{"id":403075,"date":"2021-06-23T22:53:30","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T20:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=403075"},"modified":"2021-06-24T07:27:51","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T05:27:51","slug":"john-mcafee-found-dead-in-prison-cell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/403075-john-mcafee-found-dead-in-prison-cell.html","title":{"rendered":"John McAfee found dead in prison cell"},"content":{"rendered":"

John McAfee, the creator of the eponymous antivirus software, was found dead Wednesday in prison outside Barcelona. He was 75.<\/p>\n

In recent years, McAfee became a prominent booster of cryptocurrencies, ran unsuccessfully for U.S. president, had numerous run-ins with the law and traded in extreme conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n

McAfee was discovered dead in his prison cell hours after Spain\u2019s National Court approved his extradition to the U.S. over multiple tax fraud charges. Security personnel at the Brians 2 prison in northeast Spain tried but failed to revive him, the Associated Press reported, citing a statement from the region\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

McAfee had been in Spanish custody since October on a June 2020 U.S. indictment in which he was charged with failing to file four years of tax returns while concealing assets. Then in March, he was\u00a0indicted\u00a0and accused of fraud and money laundering over his use of social media to promote cryptocurrencies, which prosecutors said generated $13 million in illicit gains for McAfee and a co-conspirator.<\/p>\n

Nishay Sanan, McAfee\u2019s attorney, said his colleagues in Spain confirmed that McAfee had been found dead in his jail cell. Sanan claimed the U.S. government had identified McAfee as a target and \u201ctried to erase him, but failed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn lived his life the way he saw fit,\u201d Sanan said. \u201cIn the end that is all that matters. You don\u2019t have to agree with his way — he did not care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Justice Department declined to comment and a spokeswoman referred questions to Spanish authorities.<\/p>\n

Before his legal turmoil, McAfee was a pioneer of the cybersecurity industry. He founded McAfee Corp. in 1987 in Santa Clara, California, and led the company as it dominated the market for antivirus protection of personal computers. Half of all Fortune 100 companies were using his software during that time. McAfee resigned in 1994. Decades later he told the South China Morning Post that running the company no longer was fun as it grew to a huge corporation with thousands of employees.<\/p>\n

Intel Corp. bought the company in 2010 and later rebranded all McAfee products as Intel Security. After his name was removed, McAfee told the BBC, \u201cI am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>

John McAfee in Belize<\/p><\/div>\n

McAfee relocated to Belize in 2008 after his $100 million fortune was reduced to $4 million following a series of failed investments in property, real estate and bonds. There he had one of his biggest conflicts with authorities in 2012 after the killing of a neighbor, Gregory Faull, a 52-year-old contractor and Florida native. McAfee\u2019s home on the island of Ambergris Caye was searched after Faull was shot to death and police said they wanted to question him as part of a murder investigation.<\/p>\n

He then sought asylum in Guatemala in 2012, claiming he wasn\u2019t on the run from authorities in Belize. He turned to social media and public interviews to salvage his reputation, sending updates to Wired magazine, allowing two reporters from Vice magazine to accompany him and posting missives to his own website. He discussed eluding police by burying himself in sand with a cardboard box and changing his appearance.<\/p>\n

McAfee was expelled from Guatemala and arrived in Miami in December 2012. In an interview with Bloomberg News the day of his departure, McAfee, then 67, said he was being forced out of Belize, but was \u201cperfectly happy with the decision.\u201d He apologized to Guatemala\u2019s then-president for putting him in \u201ca slippery position.\u201d He was later ordered by a Florida judge to pay more than $25 million to Faull\u2019s estate.<\/p>\n

In 2016, McAfee announced a run as a presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, campaigning on a privacy-focused platform that included pushing for the government to create a cybersecurity defense strategy. The party\u2019s nomination was won by former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.<\/p>\n

By 2017, McAfee jumped on the Bitcoin bandwagon as chief executive officer of MGT Capital Investments Inc. He\u2019d promised to turn the former video game operation into a profitable cybersecurity firm by ramping up its Bitcoin mining business. He stepped down later that year to become the CEO of a cryptocurrency company, Luxcore.<\/p>\n

Part of his cryptocurrency venture included charging more than $105,000 per tweet to promote initial coin offerings. McAfee later told his Twitter followers he\u2019d been forced to \u201cgo dark\u201d on social media after receiving unspecified \u201cthreats\u201d from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n

During the period from 2014 to 2018 McAfee\u00a0failed to file\u00a0U.S. tax returns, according to a federal indictment. After eluding law enforcement, he was arrested and detained last October in Spain. From prison, McAfee was able to use Twitter to continue promoting cryptocurrencies, but also to share his experience. In April, he tweeted: \u201cthis has been the most trying period in my life.\u201d At that point, he had been in the Catalonian prison for six months.<\/p>\n

In November 2019, McAfee took to Twitter to show off his latest tattoo on his right bicep. It read, \u2018$WHACKD.\u2019 In a related tweet, he wrote: \u201cGetting subtle messages from U.S. officials saying, in effect: \u201cWe\u2019re coming for you McAfee! We\u2019re going to kill yourself\u201d. I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn\u2019t. I was whackd. Check my right arm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reported that McAfee appeared to have died by suicide, citing a statement from the regional Department of Justice of Catalonia, where he was being held.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes genius and madness aren\u2019t far apart and it seems he unfortunately fell prey to his demons,\u201d said Doug Clinton, managing partner at Loup Ventures.<\/p>\n

Now read:\u00a0John McAfee arrested for tax evasion<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McAfee was found dead in his Spanish prison cell after an announcement that he would be extradited to the United States to face charges of financial crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":370253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44696,27],"tags":[16954,54019],"class_list":["post-403075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","category-security","tag-john-mcafee","tag-securities-and-exchange-commission-sec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403075"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403077,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403075\/revisions\/403077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}