US software pioneer, John McAfee, who is well known for his eponymous antivirus software McAfee has been found dead on Wednesday in his cell in Spain from an apparent suicide, McAfee’s lawyers revealed. According to a spokesperson of the Supreme Court of Catalonia. He was found by security personnel at the Brians 2 prison in northeast Spain. McAfee had been in Spanish custody since October on a June 2020 U.S. indictment in which he was charged with failing to file four years of tax returns while concealing assets. Then in March, he was indicted and accused of fraud and money laundering over his use of social media to promote cryptocurrencies, which prosecutors said generated $13 million in illicit gains for McAfee and a co-conspirator. In a statement, the Catalan justice department said that prison officers and medics attempted to save the life of the 75-year-old man after he was discovered but had been unsuccessful.
“Judicial staff have been dispatched to the prison and are investigating the causes of death,” the statement said, adding Everything points to death by suicide.
Just hours earlier, a court in Spain had approved the extradition of McAfee to the U.A, where he was set to stand trial on federal tax-evasion charges that carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
McAfee was arrested in October 2020 in Spain for failing to file tax returns from 2014 to 2018 in Tennessee and concealing assets, including a yacht.
McAfee in a 2019 tweet bragged about being a tax evader, just as federal investigators were closing in on him.
The eccentric and loud millionaire known widely for his eponymous antivirus software, McAfee sold his stake in the company in the mid-1990s and spent his life globe-trotting and stumbling habitually into legal trouble.
Eventually, he landed on an island off the coast of Belize, where he operated a palatial estate known to be the site of raging parties and illicit behavior. He fled the property after being fingered as a suspect in a murder there.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the death.
