His wife, Janice, had taken to Twitter on Sunday to claim that the US authorities were determined to have her husband die in prison to make an example of him for speaking out against the corruption within their government agencies.
John McAfee, the anti-virus software founder, committed suicide in a Barcelona prison hours after the Spanish high court authorised his extradition to the United States to face trial on tax evasion charges.
His lawyer confirmed his death. He was 75.
McAfee had argued in court that he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he was convicted in the United States.
His wife, Janice, had taken to Twitter on Sunday to claim that the US authorities were determined to have her husband die in prison to make an example of him for speaking out against the corruption within their government agencies.
There is no hope of him ever having a fair trial in America, she had said.
In 2019, McAfee had admitted that he had not paid his income taxes for the eight years for ideological reasons. After the authorities initiated action, he fled the country on his mega yacht.
For years, McAfee was on the run from United States authorities. He was charged in a cryptocurrency fraud case in New York and indicted in Tennessee on tax evasion charges. The tech mogul was detained on October 3 at the Barcelona airport as he was to board a flight to Istanbul using a British passport.
In October last year, the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused McAfee of promoting cryptocurrencies on Twitter without disclosing that he had been paid to do so.
The SEC claimed that McAfee had pretended to be independent and impartial but had received over $23 million for generating interest in the cryptocurrency offerings.
McAfee launched the world's first commercial anti-virus in 1987. Prior to that, he had worked for Lockheed Martin, Xerox and even US space agency NASA. In 2011, McAfee sold his software company to Intel. To date, the anti-virus software still carries his name.