Spain probes death of antivirus software pioneer, McAfee

Spanish investigators on Thursday probed the death of John McAfee who was found in his prison cell after an apparent suicide following a court decision approving his extradition to the US on tax evasion charges.

The body of the 75-year-old founder of the anti-virus McAfee software was discovered at around 7:00 pm on Wednesday in his cell in the Brians 2 penitentiary near Barcelona in what a prison service spokeswoman said was a death “apparently from suicide”.

Catalan legal officials confirmed it was McAfee, who had been held at the facility since his arrest in early October as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul.

His body was taken away by judicial officials who opened an investigation to determine the cause of death, a spokeswoman for Catalonia’s justice ministry told AFP on Thursday.

“There was a death which suggested suicide but confirmation must come through the autopsy,” she told AFP, saying it could be a matter of days before a postmortem would be carried out.

According to an indictment filed in a US court, McAfee was alleged to have deliberately failed to file tax returns between 2014 and 2018, despite earning millions from consulting work, cryptocurrencies and selling the rights to his life story.

If convicted, he could have faced up to 30 years in prison.

“Guards and medical staff intervened immediately to perform resuscitation measures but doctors eventually certified his death,” the Catalan justice department said in a statement.

McAfee was found dead just hours after a Spanish court said it had approved his extradition to the United States in a decision which could have been appealed.

– ‘Want him to die in prison’ –

According to the US extradition request filed in November and quoted in the ruling, McAfee earned more than 10 million euros ($12 million) in 2014-18, but never filed a tax return.

“To conceal his income and assets from the Internal Revenue Service… the defendant ordered part of his income to be paid to straw men and placed property in their names,” it said.

Since making a fortune in the 1980s with the antivirus software that still bears his name, McAfee had become a self-styled cryptocurrency guru, claiming to make $2,000 a day.

McAfee in 1987 founded the computer security software company and ran it for seven years before resigning. Punch