ANTI-VIRUS software mogul John McAfee reportedly claimed the US government was after his "hidden cryptocurrency" and complained his pals had evaporated.
The 75-year-old, who was found dead yesterday in a Barcelona prison cell hours after a Spanish court agreed to extradite him to the US on tax evasioncharges, said he had "nothing" and that he was suffering from "loneliness".
McAfee was arrested last October at Barcelona airport and had been in jail since then awaiting the outcome of extradition proceedings.
The arrest followed charges the same month in Tennessee for evading taxes after failing to report income from hyping and trading cryptocurrencies.
But a week before his death, McAfee tweeted that he no digital currency assets.
He said: "The US believes I have hidden crypto.
"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. I have nothing. Yet, I regret nothing."
My friends evaporated through fear of association. I have nothing.. yet, I regret nothing
Last month, he shared what his prison life in Catalonia was like via Twitter, describing his lonely and isolated existence behind bars.
He said: "Imagine preschool where the kids use drugs, carry makeshift weapons and the teachers tase you for asking questions."
In a different tweet, he said: "I speak no Catalan and little Spanish so human contact is limited.
"There are no entertainments – no escape from loneliness, from emptiness, from myself.
"This has been the most trying period of my life."
His wife Janice McAfee, a former prostitute, said he had been struggling "both mentally and physically, as well as financially" after eight months in prison and claimed that his life could be "irreparably destroyed" by the "court of public opinion".
Three days before his death, Janice also alleged people wanted him dead.
"I know John is an extremely polarizing individual. Believe me, I know this better than most!" Janice wrote in the lengthy note.
"But I also know, as well as any of you who follow him on Twitter, that he has always been honest about who is is. ALWAYS. Sometimes too honest, sometimes sharing more than any of us cared to know about him!
"John’s honesty has often gotten him in trouble with corrupt governments and corrupt government officials because of his outspoken nature and his refusal to be extorted, intimidated, or silenced," she claimed.
"Now the US authorities are determined to have John in prison to make an example of him for speaking out against corruption within their government agencies."
Federal prosecutors accused antivirus software company founder and his “cryptocurrency team” advisor Jimmy Watson, 40, of orchestrating fraudulent schemes to rake in millions of dollars from cryptocurrency investors.
In the “scalping” scheme, McAfee and his team allegedly bought large amounts of cheap cryptocurrency altcoins, then aggressively touted them online with “false and misleading endorsement tweets” to artificially boost their market prices.
The Department of Justice alleged: "McAfee Team members collectively earned more than $2 million in illicit profits from their altcoin scalping activities."
McAfee and Watson and the rest of his team earned "more than $11 million in undisclosed compensation that they took steps to affirmatively hide"from investors, the grand jury indictment claimed.
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