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John McAfee, the security software pioneer who seemed to live his life on the edge while mired in a gamut of legal woes, was found dead in his jail cell near Barcelona on Wednesday.
Mr. McAfee reportedly died by suicide hours after a Spanish court announced that it had approved his extradition to the United States to face tax charges that are punishable by decades in prison, authorities said.
He had lived for years running from the US enforcement authorities – a part of which he spent aboard a mega yacht. He was indicted for tax evasion charges in Tennessee and was also charged in a cryptocurrency fraud case in New York.
In 2019, after he said that he had not paid income taxes in the US for eight years for ideological reasons, McAfee left the United States to avoid trial – mostly living on a mega yacht with his wife, four canines, two guards and about half a dozen staff members.
He also ran for US President in the 2016 Presidential election – an election that threw surprise to many as Donald Trump – an underdog in front of rival Hillary Clinton – managed to pull off the election. Politically, McAfee was a proponent of cannabis legalization. He was referred to as a man who “publicly embraced drugs, guns, and sex”.
Mcafee Corporate Headquarters, © Wolterk | Megapixl.com
In his 2016 bid for the US presidency – and probably the most powerful position in the world back then – McAfee had nominated photographer, former commercial real estate broker, and Libertarian activist Judd Weiss as his vice-presidential candidate. Although, he came up as a runner-up in the primaries, he had come third at 2016 Libertarian National Convention – after which his bid could not move forward.
After an unsuccessful bid in 2016, McAfee ran for the president again in 2020, launching his presidential campaign from self-inflicted exile. However, in March 2020, as elections approached nearer, he withdrew his bid.
The larger-than life tech founder’s run ended when he was detained in October last year at the Barcelona airport, when he was about to board a flight to Istanbul carrying a British passport.
He was first arrested in Belize in 2012, when he was remanded for questioning in connection with the murder of his neighbour. However, he was never charged with a crime.
Prior to starting with world’s first commercial anti-virus – named after his own surname – in 1987, he worked for space agency NASA, Xerox Corporation and Lockheed Martin. He sold his software company to Intel in 2011 and ceased to have any kind of involvement in the cyber-security business. However, the program still carries his surname, and has about 500 million users depending on it for keeping their computers and phones safe, worldwide.
British by birth, Mr. McAfee was born in England’s Gloucestershire in 1945 as John David McAfee. However, the family soon moved across the Atlantic Ocean to Virginia, US. He used to live there with his father, who used to “beat him mercilessly” and shot himself to death when he was 15, according to Steve Morgan, founder of market research firm Cybersecurity Ventures.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a personal crisis, having suicidal thoughts and needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from anywhere in Australia. For other organizations and websites, where help and support can be sought are here.
