McAfee antivirus software founder John McAfee was discovered dead in his detention cell near Barcelona in an apparent suicide hours after a Spanish court ordered his extradition to the United States to face tax accusations that could land him in prison for decades, according to officials.
The quirky cryptocurrency advocate and tax opponent was discovered in the Brians 2 penitentiary in northeastern Spain, where his legal issues ranged from Tennessee to Central America to the Caribbean. According to a statement from the regional Catalan government, security officers attempted to resuscitate him, but the jail’s medical staff eventually declared his death.
“A judicial delegation has arrived to investigate the causes of death,” it said, adding that “everything points to death by suicide.”
The statement did not name McAfee, but claimed the dead man was a 75-year-old US citizen who was awaiting extradition to his homeland. It was McAfee, according to a Catalan government official familiar with the matter who was not allowed to be identified in media reports.
McAfee, 75, had claimed at a hearing earlier this month that the charges against him by prosecutors in Tennessee were politically motivated and that if he were sent to the United States, he would spend the rest of his life in prison.