44 votes

US tycoon John McAfee found dead in Spanish prison

10 comments

  1. [4]
    Grendel
    Link
    I'm just waiting for the plot twist to come out that it was a body double and he actually escaped again.

    I'm just waiting for the plot twist to come out that it was a body double and he actually escaped again.

    14 votes
    1. [3]
      Shahriar
      Link Parent
      Was he imprisoned before and managed to escape?

      he actually escaped again.

      Was he imprisoned before and managed to escape?

      2 votes
      1. [2]
        Grendel
        Link Parent
        He was in some South American country and they had the borders locked down because they were trying to arrest him. He actually paid someone who looked like him to get caught on purpose at the...

        He was in some South American country and they had the borders locked down because they were trying to arrest him.

        He actually paid someone who looked like him to get caught on purpose at the border, then when they let their guard down he slipped past the border. By the time they realized they had a fake he was long gone.

        8 votes
        1. cfabbro
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          It was Belize, but McAfee was notoriously full of shit, and VICE, whose reporters were supposedly with him at the time and accidentally got him arrested a few days later, is often worthy of being...

          It was Belize, but McAfee is was notoriously full of shit, and VICE, whose reporters were supposedly with him at the time and accidentally got him arrested a few days later, is often worthy of being skeptical of too, IMO... so much like almost everything else McAfee claimed happened to him over the decades, it's hard to say how much of the story is actually true. From WIRED:

          On the day after Christmas, McAfee posted a long blog post describing how he gave Belizean authorities the slip and snuck out of the country to avoid questioning (and in his estimation, wrongful prosecution) following the murder of his neighbor, Greg Faull.

          One of the reporters who snuck out of Belize with John McAfee earlier this month said the adventure was "dangerous, amazing, touching, and many other adjectives that I cannot remember right now."

          Turns out that the words that eluded him were "rainy" and "lucky."

          The former software executive describes an operation that was heavy in advance planning and trickery. He says he planted a lookalike ("my double -- a man I have known for over 30 years and who years ago legally changed his name to John McAfee") and had him picked up by authorities in the northern Belize-Mexico border, while he and a group of friends and reporters loaded up a truck and headed in the opposite direction, to a southern town called Punta Gorda. With the news that he'd been arrested broadcasting on a local news station, McAfee figured that checkpoint security would relax.

          McAfee followed another friend who was driving one of his pickup trucks to avoid checkpoints on the highway. This was another decoy, McAfee said. "If they stopped the truck, I knew the checkpoint officers would be swarming all over it. Subsequent traffic would be likely to be waved through."

          But then, he also had a secret weapon: the weather. McAfee made sure that his dash happened on a rainy day. "In Belize, no checkpoint officers will ever stop a car in the rain," he wrote.

          He says he blew through all three highway checkpoints on that early December day without ever being stopped.

          From Punta Gorda, he and his 20-year-old girlfriend Samantha Vanegas and two Vice reporters sailed into Livingston, Guatemala.

          A few days later, he was arrested in Guatemala, after the Vice reporters he was traveling with inadvertently disclosed his location. He was deported to Miami on December 12 and is now slowly driving west along back roads, his hair color changed, "staying at cut-rate motels and eating at Denny's."

          He says he plans to tell his side of the story more completely -- including, no doubt, a shot or two at his nemesis, the government of Belize -- next Thursday. "People sometimes forget that I founded one of the largest computer security firms in the world, and I didn't achieve that by not knowing how to access protected or secret information," he wrote on Monday.

          "I wear construction clothes one day, farmers clothes the next, and the next day dress like a traveling salesman," he wrote on his blog. "I think my best friends would not recognize me."

          Or so he says.

          7 votes
  2. [6]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. gco
      Link Parent
      From this article:

      From this article:

      McAfee’s lawyer in Spain told Reuters that the McAfee Associates founder apparently hanged himself.

      7 votes
    2. MimicSquid
      Link Parent
      The previous article at that link included a comment from the coroner suggesting suicide.

      The previous article at that link included a comment from the coroner suggesting suicide.

      4 votes
    3. [3]
      Octofox
      Link Parent
      He got epstein'd

      He got epstein'd

      1. JXM
        Link Parent
        Why? There’s no reason for anyone with the kind of power to kill him in prison and make it look like an accident to actually do it. He was just a crazy old man who made up stories and was wanted...

        Why? There’s no reason for anyone with the kind of power to kill him in prison and make it look like an accident to actually do it.

        He was just a crazy old man who made up stories and was wanted for tax evasion.

        14 votes
      2. Bullmaestro
        Link Parent
        I'm doubtful of this, because unlike Epstein he wasn't part of this wealthy pedophile cabal that were quite blatantly being flown to a private island for underage orgies. McAfee did post a lot of...

        I'm doubtful of this, because unlike Epstein he wasn't part of this wealthy pedophile cabal that were quite blatantly being flown to a private island for underage orgies. McAfee did post a lot of QAnon shit on social media claiming to have dirt on fed officials but I think it was all bluster and he had no real dirt on anyone.

        At the same time, given his past and the fact that he fled Belize over possibly murdering his neighbour, I don't think he would have offed himself over tax evasion charges. In fact I think if he played ball with the IRS and entered a plea bargain he wouldn't get anywhere near the 30 year maximum sentence.

        5 votes
  3. pycrust
    Link
    For those unaware, he did an amazing interview with Jena Friedman on Comedy Central. He was such a good sport. I know little about him, but found him to be funny and charming in this....

    For those unaware, he did an amazing interview with Jena Friedman on Comedy Central. He was such a good sport. I know little about him, but found him to be funny and charming in this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfe4Fjf3sds&ab_channel=AdultSwim

    1 vote