John McAfee, the creator of the McAfee antivirus software, was found dead in a Barcelona cell on Wednesday.
The 75-year-old John McAfee hanged himself in his prison cell on Wednesday after the Spanish high court authorised his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges.
McAfee has been in jail in Spain since he was arrested at Barcelona airport in October 2020, just as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul.
He is alleged to have deliberately failed to file tax returns between 2014 and 2018, despite earning millions from consulting work, cryptocurrencies and selling the rights to his life story.
If convicted, he could have faced up to 30 years in prison.
Spain’s National Court on Wednesday said it had approved his extradition to the United States. However, the decision could still have been appealed and the extradition would also have needed approval from the Spanish cabinet.
According to the US extradition request filed in November and quoted in the ruling, McAfee earned more than 10 million euros in 2014-2018, but never filed a tax return.
The Spanish court decision only referred to offences that took place between 2016-2018.
McAfee who founded the McAfee associates in 1987, was a programmer at NASA’s Institute for Space Studies in New York City from 1968 to 1970.
The anti-virus software which was created by him was quite popular in the 1980s-1990s. However, in 2010, he sold McAfee to Intel.
Later, McAfee shifted his focus to cryptocurrency from software and took over as the CEO of Luxcore,a cryptocurrency company focused on enterprise solutions.
(With Input From AFP)