British-born and American technology founder John McAfee was found dead just hours after a Spanish court agreed to extradite him to the United States.
Among other things, McAfee was charged with tax evasion and risked up to 30 years in US prison.
According to the Spanish Ministry of Justice, they have tried to revive McAfee when he was found in his prison cell in Barcelona before he was declared dead, it is said in a statement from the regional government in Catalonia.
The death is to be investigated, but to the news agency Reuters, McAfee’s lawyer, Javier Villalba, tells that he took his own life.
During a court hearing last month, McAfee is said to have stated that at the age of 75, he risked spending the rest of his life behind bars, if convicted in the United States.
Did not pay taxes
The founder, who was born in Gloucerstershire, England, first became known in the 1980s when he founded his technology company and launched the antivirus program McAfee VirusScan.
He sold the company to Intel in 2011.
Two years ago, McAfee stated that he had not paid income tax in the United States for eight years, for ideological reasons. Since then, he has lived a life on the run from US authorities. Charged with tax evasion in Tennessee and charged in a fraud case involving cryptocurrency in New York. Some of the time he will stay in hiding on board a mega yacht, writes Reuters.
He was arrested on October 3 at the airport in Barcelona, when he was going to Istanbul with a British passport, a Spanish police source stated at the time.
