Maverick McAfee

The sad news of suicide committed by John McAfee, the pioneer of Antivirus McAfee in a jail cell near Barcelona on Wednesday has indeed shocked the entire world. John McAfee was 75 years old and was found dead hours after a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States to face charges of tax evasion between 2014 and 2018. The justice department confirmed that 75-year McAfee died by hanging inside the prison.

During one of his last hearings, McAfee had expressed his anguish over spending the rest of his life in prison if he were to be convicted in the United States. It may be recalled that the incredibly nerdy McAfee became a computer programmer who was shot to fame in the 1980 when he founded McAfee Associates, a software company that made its name by selling commercial computers security software.

Further, in the mid 1990's, he founded a company behind PowWow, one of the first instant messaging and chat programs for Windows operating systems. In 1994 he resigned from the computer security software company, and the company was bought by Intel for 7.7 billion in 2010. McAfee (the company) was initially a part of Intel's cyber security unit; in 2016, Intel spun out McAfee as a separate security company.

By 2009, McAfee's fortunes were depleting fast and whatever business he floated or entered became unsuccessful. One company he started was QuorumEx, based in Belize, which promised to make herbal-based antibiotics. But his research facility was raided in 2012 by the police department's Gang Suppression Unit on suspicion that he was manufacturing methamphetamine, a highly addictive and illegal drug that can produce euphoria and stimulant effects. Quite interestingly, in 2015 and 2020, McAfee announced his run for US Presidency, and he badly fell by the way.

However, John McAfee led a riotous life and several countries wanted him to be prosecuted for different crimes he had committed. The US wanted him as he had been evading tax authorities. A US federal court indicted McAfee in March 2021 on conspiracy to commit commodities and securities fraud and several other frauds relating to cryptocurrencies and money laundering. Morally, he had become so abased that he did everything to wallow in pleasures. He was once caught red-handed lying with a 17-year-old girl.

McAfee was arrested last October at Barcelona's international airport and had been in jail since then awaiting the outcome of extradition proceedings. Though he was born in England, he moved to Virginia as a child and grew up troubled with a father who beat him mercilessly.

The father, a drunkard, killed himself with McAfee's shotgun when the boy was 15. So, it is nothing eccentric or unusual with the way McAfee acted to embrace death. His circumstances were not morally good to lead a good life enjoying the immense wealth he had accumulated through his stupendous work.

T K Nandanan, Kochi