On June 23, reports emerged that British-born US technology entrepreneur John McAfee died by suicide in a Barcelona prison. The incident happened after the Spanish high court allowed his extradition to the US on tax evasion charges, his lawyer told Reuters.
Javier Villalba, McAfee’s lawyer, said that the anti-virus software pioneer died by hanging as his nine months in prison pushed him to despair. During a court hearing back in May, McAfee, 75, said that taking his age into context, he would spend the rest of his life behind bars convicted in the United States. He stated:
“I am hoping that the Spanish court will see the injustice of this, the United States wants to use me as an example.”
McAfee had spent many years on the run from the US authorities, spending some of that time aboard a megayacht. At some point, he was indicted in Tennessee on tax evasion charges and was charged in a crypto fraud case in New York.
The gallant tech founder was detained on October 3 at the Barcelona airport as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul using a British passport. He was detained by the authorities as explained by a Spanish police source at the time.
Previously, McAfee worked for Xerox, NASA, and Lockheed Martin before he launched the first commercial anti-virus in the world in 1987. He sold his software firm to Intel in 2011 and no longer had any form of involvement in the business. The program still bears his name and has over 500 million users throughout the world.
The high court in Spain said on June 23 that it agreed to extradite McAfee to the US. The regional justice department confirmed that a US man aged around 75 awaiting extradition was found dead in his cell later in the day. Prison authorities were investigating the cause of death.
McAfee still had some opportunities to appeal his conviction but could not stand any more time in jail, according to Villalba. The lawyer added:
“This is the result of a cruel system that had no reason to keep this man in jail for so long.”
The United States prosecutors might request the judge overseeing the tax evasion case to dismiss all charges since McAfee is dead. In 2019, McAfee said that he had not paid US income taxes for up to eight years due to ideological reasons.
In the same year, he left the US to avoid trial, mainly living on a megayacht with his wife, four big dogs, two security guards, and seven staff. He offered to help Cuba avoid a US trade embargo using crypto and sought to run for US president for the Libertarian Party.
The software mogul said in 2018 that he had fathered over 47 children and had lived in Belize for several years. He fled after the authorities sought him for questioning in the 2012 murder of a neighbor. The police eventually said that he was not a suspect.
The entrepreneur allegedly met his wife, Janice McAfee, when she solicited him as a prostitute while he was on the run. Janice said in a Twitter post on June 20:
“Now the U.S. authorities are determined to have John die in prison to make an example of him for speaking out against the corruption within their government agencies… There is no hope of him ever having a fair trial in America.”
McAfee was a prolific Twitter user where he had nearly one million followers. He also used other social media platforms. In 2013, he posted a profanity-laced YouTube video that mocked the difficulty of removing the software that bore his name from the computers.
Many crypto backers throughout the world on Wednesday posted tweets of condolence. In his final public tweet on June 18, McAfee wrote:
“All power corrupts. Take care which powers you allow a democracy to wield.”
