Just after Spain’s National Court approved a request for his extradition back to the US, where he faced the prospect of dying in a jail cell, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported Wednesday evening that John McAfee committed suicide in his cell, dying at the age of 75.
He was being held in a prison in Barcelona. So far, initial evidence of his death, which occurred Wednesday afternoon, local time, points to suicide.
He was initially arrested by Spanish authorities on Oct. 3, 2020 at the El Prat airport, just as he was about to take a plane to Turkey. He was arrested at the behest of the US, where he is wanted for evading millions of dollars in taxes. Spanish judge José de la Mata reportedly ordered his arrest.
One of McAfee’s tweets from 2019 featured a cryptic warning about the eccentric founder, he made a fortune off his eponymous security software then squandered it, potentially being “suicided” by the US government.
He sent another tweet with a similar message about being “Epsteined” a year later.
We can’t help but wonder whether ‘conspiracy theories’ about the circumstances of his death will emerge in the coming weeks like they did after the in-prison suicide of another notable American.