Was John McAfee BROKE? Tech tycoon blew $100M on houses before suicide, claims report
Controversial tech tycoon, John McAfee who ended his life inside a Spanish prison cell while he was awaiting extradition to the US last month, was broke when he died, according to Author Mark Eglinton. Eglinton also revealed that McAfee blew his $100 million fortune on “bizarre” mansions all over the world.
Eglinton, a writer who collaborated with McAfee, stated that the eccentric McAfee antivirus software creator who hanged himself in prison allegedly spent millions on huge mansions and compounds in places like Belize, Texas, Colorado, Hawaii and Tennessee, and was hit hard by the real estate crisis in 2008. Eglinton, who had authored 'No Domain: The John McAfee Tapes' with McAfee, told DailyMail.com that he believes McAfee was indeed broke and the once mega-rich tech titan couldn’t even afford to pay Eglinton for his help with the book.
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“I don’t doubt that if he could have helped he would have,” Eglinton said of the modest advance fee he requested. “He said, ‘I can’t do it, my financial situation is worse than yours.”‘ Eglinton has said that he interviewed McAfee for “countless hours,” starting in August 2019 while McAfee was hiding from the US officials and MacAfee even explained to him where the money went. “We got a lot into where he spent his money over the years. He had his money in very safe investments, but he built houses, absolutely bizarre properties. Some of them, he never slept a night in the property.”
Eglinton revealed that these properties that McAfee brought became albatrosses after the financial crisis, and he had to sell many at a loss, including his compound in Woodland Park, Colo. It was estimated at more than $25 million but sold at an auction for a mere $5.72 million in 2007 to a Chicago commodities trader. McAfee allegedly told Eglinton: “The $100 million I got out of McAfee [Antivirus], that goes very quickly.” Eglinton is now publishing the book in December 2021 as the sole author.
On June 23, 2021, McAfee was found dead in his cell in a jail near Barcelona. Hours before his death, a Spanish court issued a preliminary ruling in favor of the 75-year-old tycoon's extradition to the US to face tax-related criminal charges. Security personnel at the Brians 2 penitentiary near the northeastern Spanish city tried to revive him, but the jail’s medical team finally certified his death, a statement from the regional Catalan government said. On June 21, 2021, Spain’s National Court ruled in favor of extraditing McAfee, who had contended in a hearing, that the charges against him were politically motivated and that he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he was returned to the US.
Tennessee prosecutors charged McAfee with evading taxes after failing to report income made from promoting cryptocurrencies while he did consultancy work, as well as income from speaking engagements and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary. The criminal charges carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years. The entrepreneur was arrested in October 2020 at Barcelona’s international airport.
