Controversial mogul and antivirus pioneer John McAfee on
Wednesday died by suicide in a jail cell in Barcelona, hours after
reports that he would be extradited to face federal charges in the
U.S.
McAfee was 75. He is said to have died by hanging “as his nine
months in prison brought him to despair,” according to McAfee’s
lawyer Javier Villalba, Reuters reported[1]. Security personnel at
the Brians 2 prison tried to revive McAfee, but he was eventually
declared dead, per Associated Press[2].
News of his death comes after Spain’s National Court approved
his extradition to the U.S. to face federal criminal tax evasion
charges.
McAfee worked for NASA, Xerox, and Lockheed Martin before
launching the world’s first commercial antivirus software in 1987.
He later resigned from the namesake security firm in 1994.
The former cybersecurity tycoon turned fugitive was detained in
Spain last October for “willful failure to file tax
returns[3],” with the U.S.
Department of Justice (DoJ) alleging that McAfee evaded tax
liabilities by concealing assets and directing his income to bank
accounts and cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the names of
nominees.
Earlier this March, the DoJ indicted McAfee a second time on
wire fraud and money laundering
charges[4] for using social media
to carry out an illegal pump-and-dump cryptocurrency scheme that
reportedly netted $2 million as well as promote initial coin
offerings (ICOs) without disclosing that he was being compensated
“to tout these securities on behalf of the ICO.”
On Oct. 15, after being taken into custody in Spain, McAfee
tweeted[5]: “I am content in here.
I have friends. The food is good. All is well. Know that if I hang
myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine,” he tweeted.
References
- ^
reported
(www.reuters.com) - ^
Associated Press
(apnews.com) - ^
willful
failure to file tax returns
(www.justice.gov) - ^
wire
fraud and money laundering charges
(www.justice.gov) - ^
tweeted
(twitter.com)