John McAfee commits suicide in a Barcelona prison

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John McAfee committed suicide in a Spanish prison, while waiting a court decision about whether he’d be extradited to the United States on tax evasion charges.

The news was announced by his lawyer, Javier Villalba.

A month ago McAfee pled his case in front of the Spanish court, and expressed fears that if he’s found guilty in the US he’d spend the rest of his life in prison. “I am hoping that the Spanish court will see the injustice of this. The United States wants to use me as an example”, he said.

McAfee left the US in 2019 after saying he’s not paid income taxes for eight years for “ideological reasons”, then lived on a mega yacht. He was arrested in Spain in October 2020, while attempting to board a plane to Istanbul with a British passport.

McAfee has been the center of controversy for a while now – in 2021 he was a fugitive in Belize and was arrested in Guatemala in connection to a murder investigation, though he was later released.

He started promoting cryptocurrencies in 2016 on Twitter to his 1 million followers. He was allegedly charging 105,000 USD per tweet to promote ICOs. Subsequently SEC accused him of fraud and money laundering for this activity.

At the same time Tennessee and NY prosecutors indicted him on charges of tax evasion and crypto fraud. According to the charges, McAfee owed the US government some 4,214,105 USD in taxes between 2014 to 2018.

On top of everything else, McAfee allegedly offered to help Cuba avoid the US trade embargo through the use of cryptocurrency.

Before he launched his anti-virus program, McAfee also worked for NASA, Xerox and Lockheed Martin and attempted to run for US president as a libertarian.

He sure lived a very colourful life. It’s unfortunate it ended so sadly.

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Let the conspiracy theories begin. His widow claims he wasn’t suicidal, but I imagine that’s commonplace. Very unfortunate ending to an otherwise very intriguing character. He had grounds to appeal the conviction against him, which makes this ending even more baffling.

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The best analysis I’ve heard so far from two decent commentators.

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Such a sad end for such a colourful character… John McAfee was definitely no saint but in his early days was an absolute genius in the high tech world of software and a brilliant entrepreneur of his era.

I read a detailed case study on the rise and rise of McAfee Associates years ago and even applied some of his techniques for creating demand and distribution in my businesses over the years.

The world has lost a software pioneer, innovator, genius and another colourful character in ignominious circumstances.

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I mean, conspiracy theories or not, he tweeted on multiple occasions, and even got a tattoo supporting that he’d never kill himself and if something was to happen - it wasn’t at his own hands.

The whole thing is more than a little fishy.

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I did see that and I wondered about it. It’s disturbing.

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He was a clever man but a character flawed by greed, possibly exacerbated by mental illness. Either way this made him a thief. He got caught, there was no way out, he was very old and probably would not have lived to see liberty after a long prison sentence, he killed himself. Who wouldn’t?

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Hey @tommor, he definitely wasn’t driven by greed, mental illness possibly… This guy started McAfee Antivirus on a 20k credit card and within 18 months was turning over 700k and still running the business on a credit card until he called in Venture Capital…

Not for the cash, but only to implement a management process into the business. He was a billionaire (cash & stock) in 1994 when it still meant something… (same year he resigned from McAfee Associates)

His business ethos was very unusual at the time and still is today… Software is only bits and bites… It’s not a product that uses materials, requires shipping etc… So he gave the original Antivirus software away for FREE… With over 5 million subscribers to his software… only then started to charge for the updates!!

Brilliant… Some of todays Forex Mentors and Signal Providers could learn a thing or two from McAfee.

The guy had money coming in from everywhere for his Tech Savy… He could have unlocked the iPhones for the FBI, who wanted to work with him, but he already knew his days where numbered…

He has been on the run for nearly a decade from US authorities. He made a pledge (with a tattoo) that he would never commit suicide… Like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley/Chelsea Manning… He knew to much!

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He could be a bit of eccentric but let`s RIP.

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There are plenty of people who are rich but steal money. He was just another.

Its also hard to see how a man widely rated as irrational, untrustworthy and probably mentally ill, can be a serious risk to anyone from knowing too much. Someone like that is more likely to be a danger to themselves. And know what, he was.

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@tommor, more due diligence needed for your world view… Watch and learn…

He had the FBI, CIA and NSA on the ropes… And they knew it!!

CNN just for you @tommor…

Have to watch more than just the lamestream media to understand what is going on!!

“Irrational, untrustworthy and probably mentally ill…” He disclosed to much about the CIA…

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I’m not going to watch anything from RT, let alone believe what they say.

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I think this and drug use have been suggested for probably 10+ years. And the documentary about him from a couple years back mentioned an unknown drug he frequented. I’m sure someone can pull it up with a search. Completely plausible that because he was jailed, he ran out of access to his drugs.

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I feel like he had very limited options at that point. It is sad though.

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He was going to be prosecuted for tax evasion and go to a white collar jail. People endure worse.
That said, suicide is often a product of depression and he was likely uncapable of realizing there were more positive options. Either way, it’s sad when such a thing happens.

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I wouldn’t jump to conspiracy theory either. Even if he pledged no suicide outside jail, the isolation inside it and the imminent extradition could’ve snapped him.

Reminds me a bit of Bobby Fischer, his brilliance and how he ended up in jail in Japan before Iceland took him in.

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I’d agree, but this relentless chase by the US Government to silence anyone that knows about their secret squirrel shite is more than a little bit dubious at best. Snowden, Assange, Manning in jail or exile, Epstein and now McAfee dead, these coincidences are getting a little hard to believe.

Epstein is a perfect example, cameras not active, guards who knew nothing…
Let’s see if any more information about McAfee’s last moments is dragged into the light before we take as gospel what Governments are shovelling out to the weak of mind.

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With John MacAfee it’s so easy to dismiss him and smear him due to advanced age & eccentricity. Something similar to the Assange and $hit slinging at the Ecuadorian Embassy.

I dunno, but going to an extreme of assassinating someone in a Spanish jail, making him a martyr & drawing unwanted attention is a really bad idea. Like how MBS learnt the hard way with Jamal Kashoggi.

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Actually MBS/Kashoggi case isn’t similar. The murder happened in the SA embassy, obviously without any cooperation with Turkish authorities. And Erdogan doesn’t give a hoot about Arab royalty and the usual diplomatic protocol.

And it can also be argued that spiking his food with depressants and forcing complete detachment from the outside world can lead him to take his own life. Shouldn’t be that difficult to engineer. But it should be so much easier if he were left alive and simply ignored or publicly dismissed.

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Also, we don’t know for sure that McAfee did not actually commit suicide, but we do know Kashoggi was murdered. That poor, poor man, just thinking about it gives me nightmares.