MacAfee’s second coming: Is the legendary investor in random shitcoins really hiding in Texas?

On the night of June 23, 2020, the odious entrepreneur, creator of the McAfee antivirus and former US presidential candidate John McAfee was found dead in a Spanish prison where he was awaiting extradition to his homeland on charges of tax evasion and cryptocurrency fraud. Almost two years later, one of his girlfriends tells Netflix in an exclusive interview that McAfee is alive and hiding in Texas. Here’s everything we know about it so far.

Is McAfee alive?

According to Decrypt, in the new Netflix semi-documentary “Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee,” the entrepreneur’s former partner Samantha Herrera claimed that he was still alive and in Texas. She claims that his death was staged (to evade the authorities), which he allegedly told her himself during a recent phone call.

BAFTA-winning director Charlie Russell based the film on archival videos and interviews with McAfee’s inner circle. The interview with Samantha Herrera is claimed to be the central sensation. The film premieres on August 25.

According to the New York Post, McAfee ended his relationship with Herrera in 2012. He later married Janice Dyson.

On Twitter, Janice Dyson, the entrepreneur’s widow, doubts his resurrection and the words of his former lover:

 

McAfee in crypto: the beginning of the end

Although John McAfee is the creator of the famous antivirus and can be called an IT millionaire, starting in 2018, he only made money from manipulating cryptocurrency on Twitter, for which he created the McAfee Crypto Team advertising company. But McAfee wasn’t just investing in crypto; he was consciously influencing the price, illegally earning significant sums.

The entrepreneur bought cheap, unknown crypto for almost nothing (so-called shitcoins) and then raised the price by several hundred percent with pretentious posts on his Twitter. 

Mashable journalists called John a master at convincing people “to invest in random shitcoins.” Most of the coins advertised by McAfee don’t exist anymore, except Bitcoin Cash and Dogecoin. McAfee also tweeted ads for suspicious ICO startups without specifying that they would reward him.

While even the cautious Elon Musk was eventually sued by the SEC for such things, the things McAfee was doing using his reputation and influence over the market were far more brazen and large-scale.

Eventually, McAfee was arrested in October 2020 in Spain at the request of the US authorities. The SEC accused the entrepreneur of frauding investors while promoting ICO projects and the U.S. Department of Justice accused him of failing to pay taxes. McAfee faced astronomical fines and up to 100 years in prison on those charges.

According to the Mashable investigation, even while in the hands of the authorities, he continued his manipulations of the market: Not even prison can keep John McAfee from shilling crypto.

He himself called the charges against him “an attack on all the cryptocurrencies of the world” and considered those charges politically motivated.

In June 2021, the Supreme Court of Spain allowed McAfee’s extradition to the United States. A few hours after that decision, he was found dead in a prison cell, allegedly having committed suicide. Even before his arrest, McAfee had put a tattoo on himself in which he warned that he did not intend to commit suicide. The Spanish authorities refused, without explanation, to release the businessman’s body to his widow for an independent examination of the causes of death.

His death turned out to be no less mysterious and vivid, just like his entire extravagant life. And even after his death, McAfee continues to spark people’s imagination.