McAfee antivirus founder John McAfee was found dead in the cell of a Barcelona prison where he was being held. This was reported by El País and other Iberian media, citing prison sources. It is feared that he committed suicide. McAfee, 75, was arrested at Barcelona airport last October after being wanted by US authorities as an alleged tax evader for more than $ 23 million. Today the Spanish court of the Audiencia Nacional gave the green light to the extradition to the United States.
That of the eccentric entrepreneur has long been a life on the run. In 2012 he fled Belize where a man was found dead in a pool of blood at his home. He took refuge in Guatemala and feigned a cardiac arrest to avoid arrest: in Belize, in fact, he was accused of producing amphetamines in an antibiotic factory. Back in the United States he tried to run – unsuccessfully – also for the White House and then started investing in cryptocurrencies.
His problems with justice began very early: a young university professor was dismissed from teaching due to an affair with a student, in those years you were also arrested for possession of marijuana, but the turning point came in 1970 when he moved to Silicon Valley.
In California he tries all kinds of drugs, but he also has the enlightenment to start the company that still bears his name by inventing an antivirus, when computers are not yet on all desks in the world.
In 1992, the Michelangelo virus hit 5 million computers around the world and the demand for antivirus exploded: McAfee became a billionaire and two years later the company devoted itself to investments and his passions, which he defined on Twitter as follows: “Drugs, the alcohol and cigarettes are the secret of a long life and eternal happiness ».
In 1994 he left the company and began a profitable business as a lecturer. He sells all the shares in his possession and makes $ 100 million from them which should allow him to spend a quiet old age. The mortgage crisis, however, burns 96% of his fortune. A blow that will make him one of the most ardent enthusiasts of Bitcoin, leading him to invest in 2016 in the startup Mgt Technologies, of which he will also be CEO for a short period. He is now a guru and his hyperbolic predictions on the future appreciation of Bitcoin are taken seriously by countless investors, even when he claims that he would have eaten his penis on live TV if the cryptocurrency had not reached the value of one million dollars by the end of. 2020.