Time.news – John McAfee, founder of the antivirus system of the same name, committed suicide in prison in Spain.
Accused in the US of tax evasion, was arrested at Barcelona airport and the Spanish national court approved his extradition to the US. He was 75 years old.
His life is full of dark sides and twists. On the night of November 21, 2012, the body of 52-year-old Gregory Faull was found in a pool of blood in his home in San Pedro, in Belize, where he had moved after the divorce. He was killed by a 9mm bullet whose case is found close to the body. His phone and computer are gone but there are no signs of a break-in. Two days earlier he had had the latest in a series of furious arguments with McAfee, his neighbor, a computer engineer who, despite his advanced age, he spent his days amidst noisy drug parties and very young prostitutes. The cops look for him to question him but he has already managed to escape.
A month later they find him in Guatemala, where he is arrested for illegal immigration. To avoid being deported to Belize, he fakes a heart attack. No formal charges are brought against him in connection with Faull’s mysterious death and he is only wanted as a person with knowledge of the facts, it is then clarified. He tells reporters that he fled because he feared the Belize government wanted him dead. His relationship with the authorities of the Latin American state where he had moved in 2008, after having lost almost all of his assets due to the financial crisis, in fact, it had always been difficult.
A few months earlier they had dismantled the laboratory where he manufactured antibiotics claiming that it actually produced amphetamines there. However, nothing illegal had been found in the facility. And the disputes seemed to have been closed: the mayor of San Pedro had also thanked him when on November 8, 2012, in a press conference, McAfee gave the local police 40 stun guns, handcuffs and batons as a personal contribution to the fight against the crime that was damaging Belize’s tourism industry.
In Guatemala, McAfee finds a lawyer who is blocking his move to Belize. The computer scientist is deported to Miami where in a restaurant he meets his future wife, Janice Dyson, a former prostitute. The couple moved first to Portland, Oregon, and then to Lexington, Tennessee.
McAfee finally seems to have found peace after a troubled life marked by excesses. Try to run unsuccessfully in the primary of the Libertarian Party to run for the US presidency and returns to one of his old loves, the world of cryptocurrencies.
In the world of computing, McAfee was a legend. The requests for advice are flooding. The 23.1 million dollars earned, with advice deemed fraudulent, however, are missing from the appeal of the taxman. And on 5 October 2020, indicted by the Justice Department, McAfee leaves for the last escape, towards Istanbul, but is stopped by the Spanish police at Barcelona airport. awaiting extradition to the United States, where he faces up to five years in prison. Today he ended his life.
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