TheQuartering [6/23/2021]
RIP John McAfee.
Antivirus software tycoon John McAfee apparently hanged himself in a Spanish jail cell on Wednesday — just hours after a court ruled he would be extradited to face federal charges in the US.
Authorities said a preliminary investigation determined there were no signs of foul play, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.
The 75-year-old eccentric tech entrepreneur was arrested in October and was awaiting extradition in the Barcelona jail when he was found dead by hanging, police sources told El Pais.
The newspaper reported McAfee was pulled from his cell in Barcelona and police are investigating the circumstances around his death.
“Everything points to suicide,” the newspaper reported, citing justice department officials in the country. A second Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, also reported McAfee had died by an apparent suicide in the jail.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Spanish High Court had agreed to extradite McAfee, who had been charged with a number of federal financial crimes in two districts in the United States.
McAfee was hit with a 10-count indictment in the Western District of Tennessee in October for allegedly evading taxes on millions of dollars in income.
He was arrested by authorities in Spain after the indictment was handed down and had been in custody in the country since.
In the Tennessee case, prosecutors alleged McAfee racked up millions of dollars in income through speaking engagements, selling his personal story for a documentary and doing consulting work.
He then skipped paying taxes on all of the income from 2014 to 2018, according to the feds.