McAfee Antivirus founder John McAfee has been found dead in a prison cell in Spain, where he is seeking extradition to the United States, officials said Wednesday. McAfee was found dead in a jail cell in Barcelona hours after a Spanish court agreed to extradite him to the US on tax evasion charges. John David McAfee, founder of the antivirus firm that developed the software that gave rise to the coronavirus, was killed Wednesday after being extradited to the United States to face tax fraud charges.
John McAfee, creator of McAfee Antivirus software, was found dead on Wednesday in his prison cell in Barcelona, hours after a Spanish court agreed to bring him to the United States to face tax sleight of hand which could carry up to a decade of prison time, authorities said.
El Mundo cited a report by the Catalan Justice Ministry that prison medics had tried to resuscitate McAfee. Security personnel tried to resuscitate McAfee before the prison’s medical team confirmed his death, a statement from the Catalan regional government said.
Prison officials trying to resuscitate McAfee said the apparent cause of death was suicide. McAfee had the right to appeal against his extradition, which still requires final approval by the Spanish cabinet.
McAfee had emerged earlier this month from a series of murder charges in Belize. In July this year he was released from custody in the Dominican Republic, where he and five other suspects were on a yacht carrying high-class weapons, ammunition and military equipment, officials at the time said. McAfee told The Associated Press at the time that he was being pursued by the Belizean government.
McAfee was arrested in October last year in Spain and later this month charged with tax fraud in the US. In March, he was also indicted in federal court in Manhattan for a pump-and-dump scheme involving cryptocurrencies that he promoted with his large following on social media. John McAfee is seen in a December 2012 photo taken in Miami Beach, Florida, arguing that the allegations he faced in the United States were politically motivated.
McAfee argued in a hearing held earlier this month via video link in Spain that the charges against him were politically motivated and said he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he returned to the USA. In an interview with The Independent British newspaper, he said that his experience in a Spanish prison had been a “fascinating adventure” and had never intended to return to the United States.
Security staff at Brians 2 Prison in the northeastern Spanish town tried to revive him, but the medical team of the prison confirmed his death, according to a statement from the Catalan regional government. A Catalan government source familiar with the events, who asked not to be named because of media reports, confirmed to the Catalan government that McAfee, 75, was indeed dead. His death was confirmed by the Spanish National Court which decided in favor of McAfee’s extradition after 75 argued at a hearing earlier this month that the charges against him by prosecutors in Tennessee were politically motivated and that he should spend the rest of his life in prison before being sent back to the US. On Wednesday. John McAfee was found dead in his Spanish prison cell in an apparent suicide, hours after Spain’s National Court had approved his extradition to the United States.
The businessman’s arrest came just days after authorities announced a US indictment for alleged tax offenses. McAfee was acquitted in Tennessee on charges of evading taxes and failing to report income from the promotion of cryptocurrencies through consulting work, income from speaking engagements and sale of his life story in the same month. Tennessee prosecutors accused McAfee of tax evasion and failing to report income from the production and promotion of cryptocurrencies through his consulting work, speaking engagements and the sale of rights to a documentary.
The American billionaire and tycoon John McAfee, best known for his antivirus software development, was found in his prison cell in Catalonia dead, his death confirmed by prison sources. McAfee was an eccentric tech entrepreneur and founder of an antivirus software company, who died behind bars in a Spanish prison. John McAfee, a British-American antivirus entrepreneur and founder of McAfee Associates was found dead in a prison in Catalonia, Spain, where he waited for extradition last year to the United States on tax evasion charges.
In this file photo from Tuesday, August 16, 2016, the founder of the first commercial anti-virus program bearing his name is John McAfee, he talks during the 4th China Internet Security Conference (ISC) in Beijing. FILE – In this December 12, 2012 file photo, Antivirus software founder John McAfee talks on his mobile phone as he walks along Ocean Drive in the South Beach area of Miami Beach, Florida. The eccentric tech entrepreneur known for his eccentric, tech-savvy software was found dead in a cell in a prison in Barcelona on Wednesday, June 23, 2021, according to a government source.
John David McAfee was born in England in Gloucestershire in 1945 and grew up when he moved to Virginia as a child with a troubled father who beat and killed him by killing himself as a boy with a McAfee shotgun, and was 15, said Steve Morgan in 2016 who spent time with McAfee in Alabama to talk about his life and the biography for which he had a contract. While McAfee’s technological legacy has been overshadowed in recent years by the death of his father, Morgan said he still sees McAfee as a pioneer in software security with lasting impact.
