John McAfee, the antivirus pioneer who died in a Spanish prison last month, blew his $100 million fortune on “bizarre” mansions and was actually broke when he died, according to a new report.
Author Mark Eglinton, who “collaborated with McAfee on a book for six months while he was on the run from authorities,” believes “McAfee was indeed penniless, citing his personal experience with the outlaw and extensive interviews with him,” reports The Daily Mail.
“He had his money in very safe investments, but he built houses, absolutely bizarre properties,” the Scottish author told the British newspaper. “Some of them, he never slept a night in the property.” More from The Daily Mail:
McAfee owned, at various points, large mansions and compounds in Belize, Texas, Colorado, Hawaii and Tennessee, among other locations.
He sold some of those properties at a tremendous loss as property values contracted in the Great Recession, perhaps due to liquidity issues.
McAfee’s compound in Woodland Park, Colorado, for example, included a 10,000-square-foot main house that was fully furnished with antiques from around the world. It was valued at more than $25 million but sold at auction for a mere $5.72 million to a Chicago commodities trader in 2007.
Eglinton said McAfee told him: “The $100 million I got out of McAfee [Antivirus], that goes very quickly.”
Before his death, McAfee had gone to great effort to insist that he was broke. “The US believes I have hidden crypto,” he wrote on Twitter. “I wish I did but it has dissolved through the many hands of Team McAfee (your belief is not required), and my remaining assets are all seized. My friends evaporated through fear of association.”
In late June, McAfee was found dead in his cell in Brians 2 prison, located in Sant Esteve de Sesrovires near Barcelona, with the Catalan Department of Justice reporting that “everything points to a suicide.”
His wife Janice blasted the media as a “malignant cancer” responsible for spreading the “story” that her late husband died by suicide.
This is an excerpt from The Daily Wire.
Scroll down to leave a comment and share your thoughts.
