SOFTWARE pioneer John McAfee did not own an apartment in the Miami apartment block that collapsed on Thursday, it has been revealed.
A disturbing conspiracy theory claimed the tech mogul, 75, stored files in a condo of the 12-story tower in Surfside, Florida.
A tweet from June 21 that was supposedly shared read: “If anyone ever happens to me, please know that the 31TB of files I have are located on hard drives in my condo near 88th street and Collins Avenue just north of Miami Beach.”
There is no evidence such a tweet exists or has ever existed.
The Associated Press reviewed property records for the wing of the building that collapsed and found neither McAfee nor his wife was listed as the owner of any property.
And, nor were any of the business entities that owned property in the building associated with them.
A review of McAfee’s address history and business affiliations also revealed no connection to any of the business owning property there.
Fact-checkers have denounced the validity of the conspiracy theory as the fake tweet did not appear on McAfee’s Twitter feed, nor in a digital archive of his account.
McAfee claimed in a June 2019 tweet that he had 31 terabytes of files on government corruption.
He did not reveal their location.
At least nine people are dead and 150 are missing following the building collapse around 1:30am on Thursday.
The death toll increased from five to nine on Sunday, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava confirmed.
Search and rescue operations remain ongoing as crews try to find survivors.
McAfee was found dead in a jail cell in Barcelona on June 23 – hours after a Spanish court agreed to extradite him to the US to face tax evasion charges.
The tax-related criminal charges carried a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
The tech mogul reportedly took his own life in prison, according to his lawyer.
Authorities found no signs of foul play after an initial investigation, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.
McAfee was arrested on October 3 of last year at El Prat airport in Spain, as he was about to flee the country to Turkey.
He was charged in Tennessee with evading taxes after failing to report income made from promoting cryptocurrencies while he did consulting work, made speaking engagements, and sold the rights to his life story for a documentary.
McAfee sold his antivirus company to Intel for $7.7billion in 2011.
The pioneer who developed early internet security software has been sought by authorities in the US and Belize in the past over tax
The Tennessee indictment said McAfee failed to file tax returns from 2014 to 2018, despite receiving "considerable income" from several sources.
According to a June 15 indictment, McAfee allegedly earned millions from speaking engagements, consulting, promoting cryptocurrencies and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary.
The indictment did not allege that the tech boss received any income in relation with McAfee Associates.
McAfee was also charged over a $13million cryptocurrency scam after allegedly luring victims on Twitter.
The McAfee Associates founder was also hit with a slew of charges, including money laundering and fraud, in Manhattan federal court.
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