July 16, 2021 • 59 mins
John McAfee lived a life of extremes, from working as a tech entrepreneur to becoming an international fugitive, Presidential candidate and more. As time went on, he became increasingly paranoid, certain that powerful forces were out to get him. And on June 23rd, he was found dead in a Spanish jail cell. The authorities concluded he committed suicide. Numerous people disagree with this conclusion -- including John McAfee himself, who warned people numerous times that he would never take his own life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with out our superproducer,
all mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist John McAfee is dead.
Over the course of his life, he was a study
(00:46):
in contradiction, hyperbole, and arguably at times of studying genius.
It's no secret that his views were extreme, and his
stories and his own recollections at times were a contradictor.
He made and lost a fortune. At least, he loved
the public spotlight, embraced it, and he died quite recently
(01:08):
in a Spanish prison cell while awaiting extradition to the
US on a litany of charges. In today's episode, we're
diving into the controversial twists and turns of his time
on Earth, and we're seeking to suss out the answer
to one burning question, did he in fact as officials
have concluded, take his own life, and why do so
(01:33):
many people question the official narrative. To answer this, we're
gonna have to start by learning a little bit more
about the man himself. And this is one of those
episodes where you know, we've still got the facts, still
got the crazy. Just be very well aware of folks,
The facts themselves are pretty insane in this case. So,
(01:53):
without further ado, here are the facts. Yeah, So let's
start with John McAfee's life first. John David McAfee was
born on September eighteenth of nineteen forty five on a
United States Army base UM. Specifically, it was the five
hundred and sixty nine Ordinance Ammunition Company, and that was
(02:14):
in Gloucestershire, England. His father was Don McAfee, an American
stationed on that base. While he was born in the
United Kingdom, McAfee grew up in Salem, Virginia, and in
nineteen sixty his father tragically took his own life UM,
something that may come into play in terms of hereditary
(02:36):
factors in McAfee's own passing UM. McAfee received his bachelor's
degree in math from Roanoke College seven years later in
nineteen sixty seven, and he would ultimately receive an honorary
doctor of Science degree from that college. Yeah, and he originally,
at least according to himself, Uh, he wanted to keep
(02:57):
going down that educational route. When when in nineteen sixty seven,
when he got his degree and he was at Northeast
Louisiana State College where he was doing such a thing.
He was trying to get a doctorate in mathematics, not
an honorary one and actual one. And uh, he ran
into some trouble the next year in nineteen sixty eight,
(03:20):
he ended up getting expelled because he had a relationship
with an undergrad and uh, it didn't go so great
in the educational department, but they did form a family.
They got married after after that whole thing happened, And
that would be number one out of the three of
which we are aware. Yeah, and he had numerous amorous
(03:45):
relationships right outside of marriage, both while he was married
and while he was legally single. Uh, this first marriage
was short lived. When you hear people talking about McAfee
himself now and you hear references to his wife, they're
talking about his third wife, Jess, who is alive as
we record this, so yeah, we already see some of
(04:09):
these contradictions and later interviews. McAfee goes on to say
that he started abusing drugs and alcohol pretty early in life.
I don't think he would necessarily use the term abuse.
He was a huge proponent of recreational drug use. But
we see these contradictions. A guy who was academically pretty
on point, but also you know, uh, considers himself a
(04:32):
bit of a casta nova, a bit of a ladies man,
uh and you know, parties in his mind just as
hard as he works. Kind of reminds me of almost
like a william S. Burrows figure in that way, someone
whom you know, advocated for the recreational use of drugs
and continued to use drugs until the day that he
he passed away. As well, he probably saw himself as
(04:54):
a sort of Tony Stark figure, right, tech Narati who
was beyond cool, and as we'll see, the cultivation of
his public image is something that he spent a great
deal of time thinking through. So he but again, inarguably
the guy is pretty intelligent, right, And I also want
(05:16):
to give a shout out to our pow Robert over
on behind the Bastards. Some time ago, they did a
two part episode on McAfee's life if you'd like to
learn more, But that was I believe that was recorded
before McAfee passed away. So he's a smart guy. He
goes to work for NASA and outfit in New York
from nine to nineteen seventy and he's working on the
(05:40):
Apollo program, so he's part of space exploration history. But
after that he takes his career to the private sector.
He works for Univac as a software designer, and then
he moves to Xerox as operating systems architect, and then
he becomes a software consultant at a place with the
honishingly creative name Computer Sciences Corporation. Well it was you know,
(06:05):
it was a new era at that time because names
like that, and also perhaps a presciently he worked for
a firm called Booze Alan Hamilton's in the early eighties UM.
And also, you know, while at Lockheed in the mid eighties,
he got hipped to IBM in their first computer virus.
This was a program called brain um and in six
(06:31):
This awareness of the idea of computer viruses ultimately changed
the direction of his career. And his life. He understood
that virus has posed a much larger threat than maybe
he was even realized at the time. Yeah, he saw
the shadow they would cast. Just before we move on,
you may recognize that name Booze Island Hamilton's if you're
(06:51):
listening to this. The reason why it stuck in my
brain is because there's another person who formerly worked for
a company. That person's name is Edward Snowden, and uh
they you know, the company has a very close link
with some of the intelligence services within the United States,
so that that may be a reason why you've heard
(07:12):
of them as well. It's a good weapon, it's a
great catch. Matt Edge shows up in today's episode later
as well. Before we move on, I do want to
say one thing in defense of the virus known as
brain first of its kind that people really clocked came
out in NINETI. But the story behind it is fascinating,
even though it's not really relevant in this episode. It
(07:35):
was created by these two, uh, this pair of Pakistani brothers,
and they didn't really have an ill intention. They like
almost like someone in a stadium in a sports game
who tries to start a wave. You know, you've got
to be brave or kind of drunk to try to
start a wave on your own. They were trying to
do that. They didn't really want to upset you know,
(07:56):
financial apple carts or anything. They literally just thought it
was a cool idea and they wanted, like someone doing
a way to the stadium to see how far it
could travel. How do we know because they put like
their real names and contact information in the code, and
the virus itself was named after their physical computer shop,
just saying they weren't trying to be like Shadowy in secret,
(08:19):
and they were like, hey, tell us if our the
cool thing works. And that's when McAfee was like, oh,
this could be the end of the world, and he
set up on his mission. This leads us like Noah
saying this, this is a milestone, a turning point for him.
He understands the danger viruses and malware could create, and
(08:40):
so he immediately goes to work making antivirus software with
the goal of automatically detecting and automatically removing similar programs.
By the next year, he's founded McAfee Associates, Incorporated to
sell the software. It is the first of its kind
commercially available, and it's weird because he's selling something that
(09:03):
fixes a problem most people at this point don't understand
is a problem. It's also a time where not nearly
as many crucial systems things like vehicles even for example,
or infrastructure, um, you know, maintenance were run by computers. Um.
It's something that he really did kind of see the
future of and take action. And uh, while we will
(09:26):
all come to associate McAfee software with sort of inconvenience
and maybe not being the most efficient at what it
was setting out to do, the fact that he had
that idea speaks to his his brilliance. Agreed, Yeah in
that regard for sure. And he's he's fighting a battle
on two fronts, or at least his goals are two fold. First, yeah,
(09:47):
making money is important, he's not a volunteer. He is
selling this. But secondly, he needs to to to make
those sales. He needs to spread awareness about the danger
of this new phenomenon. And he was accessibul on both fronts.
That's why today McAfee remains a well known software brand,
though as we as we've implied, a controversial one that
(10:11):
is known for having its take ups and being him
perfect by nine. In the early nineteen nineties, he McAfee
was making about five million dollars a year, nothing to
sneeze at. But at the same time that he was
bawling out financially, he was getting more and more disillusioned
(10:33):
with the company that he founded. He was beginning to
sour on the enterprise. And so you'll see like he
takes steps away from like being in executive management, he
takes further and further steps back, kind of like Jeff Bezos,
and then in he sells off everything he owns in
the company and then starts talking trash about them for
(10:55):
the rest of his life. He hates he does. He
hates them with a passion um. It makes sense that
that he would be bad at managing a company like
he seems like more of the idea man and less
the like nuts and bolts kind of day to day
kind of dude. You know, I don't know if I
want to do an escape room with him. Probably not.
He would just have a forty five holester and just
(11:16):
start shooting holes and things. He would be like hay on,
al Right, guys, First things first, where do you think
they put the cocaine? Like, I don't know, man escape
rooms don't usually have cocaine. He's like, I've got a
new business idea. And then he starts tearing the room
apart from the studs, looking for the status escape room.
(11:37):
It's all it's all cocaine based and he'll just figure
out the legalities later. Can I just give you a
reference for what I'm thinking about there, Because in John
McAfee started a YouTube channel, and I want to say
it was the first video he uploaded was titled how
to uninstall. Yeah, how to uninstall McAfee first video he
(12:00):
put up, and it it does just what we're discussing here.
He starts talking trash about McAfee antivirus software. Then he
proceeds to do bath salts. It's with a thing that
says bath salts and starts doing that with a bunch
of scantily clad women. And he's trying to figure out
how to uninstall McAfee antivirus software. And his solution is
(12:20):
to shoot a hole into the laptop. Oh well there.
It's also like, I mean, when I remember when this
came out, and I was not aware of the connection
between this this person and then the software. I just
assumed it was. I didn't I didn't even understand there
was a person involved. But he's obviously making this kind
of as a joke, a little bit tongue in cheek. Um,
I thought it was an absolute joke. This was some
(12:42):
kind of actor playing like this character that was this unhinged,
you know, anti virus impresario, but quickly found out that
it was true. He's also wearing like a Hugh Hefner
style kind of smoking jacket, and um, I think it's
it's pretty clearly a fake background that looks like some
sort of drawing room and like a country re estate.
Perhaps he was going for those big Dosaki's most interesting
(13:04):
man vibes and nailed it, nailed it. That's what He's
on a propaganda mission in a very real way. And
you know, you'll admit, you'll have to admit. There are
times where he is funny in interviews, like where he
genuinely says some amusing, insightful stuff, But being funny doesn't
(13:24):
make you a good person, which hopefully is not a
common misconception anyway. Yeah, so he he also holds a
grudge for serious for real forever, and the company McAfee
is high on his list, and he is has no
hesitation about saying so. In fact, you get the sense
(13:47):
he looks forward to talking about how much he hates them.
Intel eventually takes over McAfee in in that summer, and
for a lot of money, by the way, seven point
four billion. I think it's a ton because they were McAfee,
you know, regardless of whether or not you think it
works well today, it was the first of its kind
(14:10):
to market, so that's a huge deal. And people are
already kind of path dependent because they had it on
their computers. They didn't know, you know, they were scared
to not have it. So Intel sees the value in this.
They take over for a time. They try to change
the brand name to Intel Security. McAfee is over the
moon about this. He goes public and he says, quote,
(14:32):
I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me
from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet.
It was. It was a little premature in his celebration, though, folks,
because eventually the brand name switched back to McAfee again,
the first in the game. That brand recognition is priceless
(14:53):
to marketing, and it still operates under that name to
this day. But as we will find there is much
much more to this man's story than just the business
bearing his name. He was an object of fascination, controversy,
and tons of criticism in his adult years. Uh the guy,
If the guy was a D and D character he
(15:15):
did not like. Uh Honestly, diplomacy was his dump stat
He didn't particularly care to be diplomatic or worried too
much about his bedside manner when he had a disagreement
with someone and he was Uh, he was a libertarian.
He had views that a lot of people would consider extreme,
(15:37):
such as his belief that taxation itself, the concept, the
practice was illegal. Yeah. Yeah, that's the I mean, that's
how they got composed, right. He also openly admitted to
deceiving people about bitcoin, and this is this is just
one of the many controversies, but it's more recent one.
(15:58):
He had a massive following on Twitter, and he leveraged
that to get people on board with the idea of
cryptocurrency in and then just a little bit later January,
he's back on Twitter and he's like, yeah, you know,
I was a ruse. It was a scheme. Those statements.
I made those statements just to get more people on
board with cryptocurrency, So the question is how much money
(16:20):
did he make and wasn't a pumping up It's Yeah,
that's still weird to me that it's illegal for somebody
who in some way isn't like connected directly with a currency.
And I don't know, I don't even know how to
wrap my head around this, but it makes sense if
it's somebody with a ton of holdings that have shareholders
(16:42):
and they're like manipulating the system, that makes sense to
me why that would be illegal. It doesn't make sense
to me by somebody who just one person who has
a financial stake in something can't pig up the thing
in order to make more money. That's weird to me.
I'd be interested in seeing whatever statue it it is
that spells that out and like how how it actually
(17:03):
is phrased, because you're right, I mean, it's essentially using
your public persona and you're following for personal financial gain.
But how is that any different than like say, pimping
out a product or something like that, or um, you know,
just literally promoting yourself and like your your films or
something like that. Yeah, like the self as brand, right,
(17:26):
that's something that's very popular in the age of ubiquitous communication.
I think it's the knowing nous of it all, like
knowing that what he's planning to do is big up
it and then dump it. And if that can be proven,
then that obviously it's ethically dubious at best. But I
can see why there could be some statue that spells
out what makes that illegal, and there should be. The
(17:46):
Southern District of New York filed charges, uh, saying that
this was fraud and money laundering because they were they
were making money in a way that circumvented disclosure to investors.
And you know, honestly, that's how that's how a lot
of people end up in jails when you mess with
(18:07):
the money. If you're powerful enough, people let a lot
of things slide. But when you start messing with the
bank accounts, uh, that's that's when the sleeping giants awake.
And you can you can read the charges against him
for the allegations of crypto fraud. They were published on
or they went public on March five. So it goes
(18:28):
back to the idea they were swindling investors and what
are called i c o s or initial coin offerings,
that's where you can you know, buy crypto when it
like hits the quote unquote market. So they were making
money in illegal ways, that's what the charges were. Yeah,
I mean it's a lot like the story we covered
recently about the Phase Clan gamer kind of crew that was,
(18:51):
you know, kind of rigging these charity I c O
s uh and doing a similar pump and dump kind
of situation, just a slightly lower profile because he really
was just screaming it from the rooftops. Mccafee was like
he did everything pretty much, you know, yeah, yeah, it's
not not much of a whisper guy, but uh he
so he gets this, he gets this criticism, and he
(19:13):
you know, he's getting in trouble, but he's this is
not stopping him. We'll jump around in time just a
bit after he leaves the software company he founded, he
goes on to create a number of very short lived businesses.
Everything for like a lot of it's in the tech space,
everything from a firewall concept to uh instant messaging I
(19:38):
M system to a ranch that gives you shrike flights
and these were like hang gliders or a cabin in
them you would fly on there. So you know, he's
not all tech. I guess. Uh. But the story takes
a big turn when he travels down south. How far
(19:59):
south we talking talking about Central America? So I propose
we pause for a word from our sponsor and returned
to join John McFee in Belize. Okay, and we're back,
and now we are in Belize, in Central America. It
(20:20):
is two thousand eight. John McAfee is there. He, according
to the story, was there to start a company called
Quorum e X, which had a very interesting goal. Wanted
to sell herbal antibiotics. M hmm, okay, move to Belize,
sell herbs the dream Yes, and these could, allegedly, according
(20:44):
to the company, disrupt quote quorum sensing in bacteria. Hmm interesting. Interesting,
So correct me if I'm wrong here, Ben, But my
understanding of quorum sensing is almost exactly what it says
with the words, uh. The bacteria will form a quorum
(21:05):
at some point when there are enough of them together
because they use um particular biochemical signals to um not
decide what they're gonna do or when or how, but
when they all get together, sign signals are sent back
and forth and uh via the coreum and the things
(21:26):
we're going to disrupt the the signals. Essentially, you've got
the parliamentarian bacteria. You know, you've got the it's like
it's like congress basically. Well, I mean, but yeah, but
that means when bacteria, when enough bacteria gets together, you
get a colony. That's when things can go really wrong. Totally. Yeah.
Quorum sensing allows colonies of bacteria to It gives some
(21:48):
production coordination, amatch of them carry out collectively any number
of things that could be great for that colony in bacteria,
but maybe not so great for other things like human means.
So it's it's an idea that has a sound basis. Um.
We just don't know whether there was efficacy to those
(22:10):
herbal antibiotics or whether or not he was actually doing
that thing or not. He is the epitome of an
unreliable narrator. That is true. So things progressed with this
business until about two thousand and twelve when a part
of Belize's police force called the Gang Suppression Unit does
a kick door. They bust into the pooram X research
(22:31):
lab based on the suspicion that they have. They feel
like that reliable intel has informed them, uh, this is
actually a methamphetamine lab and that they're not making herbal antibiotics,
they're making crystal. And so the authorities go hard on
this guy. They take all they confiscate all his weapons.
(22:52):
And if you've seen any interviews, uh, regarding guns and
weaponry with him, you know he's a gun nut. He
loved it. He never had enough guns. He said, I
only feel safe if I'm in bed with a gun
and the doors locked. Yes, yeah, notoriously paranoid, yes. And
he also the thing is with those guns, they were
all licensed, they were legal for him to own them.
(23:14):
And the authorities also took his passport, meaning he could
not legally leave Belize. It also shot the dog he
had at the time they threw him in prison. Ultimately
they dropped all the charges. Yeah, and according to reports
from the authorities, when they got there to arrest him,
he was in bed with a sixteen year old girl. Um,
(23:36):
this is one of many allegations of this type that
we're going to hear as the story progresses. Um. It
really was only the beginning of his troubles in this country.
That same year, he had a neighbor that he was
constantly in dispute with, a guy by the name of
Gregory Fall they had some disagreements about McAfee's dogs. He
(23:57):
was really into dogs. He had nine of them, and
um Fall believed that they were a menace or at
the very least a nuisance. Uh reports that they were
like mean, I'm sure. I mean, the guy strikes me
as the type of dude that would encourage that type
of behavior. He's all about self protection and he's all about,
you know, having some sort of perimeter, and I'm sure
(24:18):
he trained the dogs to to be very vicious. I mean,
it makes sense. It tracks with his personality. Um. By
the way, this guy, Gregory Fall was was found dead
with a gunshot wound to the head, back in the head. Yeah,
I do want to before before you getting the details
of this, which is another pivotal event in his life,
right up there with learning about computer viruses. Matt. In
(24:40):
your research, you found something that I thought was just
a very telling encapsulation of McAfee's attitude and his communication style. Absolutely. Um.
After all of this happened in two thousand and twelve
and he went on the lamb, as they say, with
(25:00):
his with his wife at the time. I believe he
was making those those videos on YouTube. We talked about
the first one. The fourth video that he published was
titled John McAfee tells All Slash Raw And in this one,
he's in the same outfit NOL that you liked so much.
(25:21):
He's in the same backdrop, and he is it's he's
doing a tell all and he's answering to all of
the public discussion that's happening in the news about him
and his activities and specifically about his neighbor Craig. And
in this he's being silly again, but he's also being
serious and it's weird. He rides that line in such
(25:43):
a weird way. He says, a lot of people are
asking me questions. Here are the four most popular factual questions.
One did I murder my neighbor in Belize? Okay, let's
just get right to it too. Was I manufacturing illegal
drugs in Central America the cops think. Three was I
having sex with underage girls? That's literally what the cops said.
(26:06):
And was I using bath salts? I can answer a
resounding no to all three of those questions, But which
one was a yes? See that we don't know. We
don't know. I mean, he's he supposedly was doing bath salts.
In that previous video you described Matt, but I think
it was like literally like a container that said bath
salts on it, like it was meant to be very
(26:27):
tongue and shoo. It's the spectacle of it, you know.
And he also made a lot of enemies. It wasn't
just his neighbor. He alleges that some of the charges
against him were simply politically motivated because he refused to
donate to a campaign funds for local politician that lived
in his neighborhood. Yeah, he called him bribes, like all
(26:50):
just straight up bribes, right, And then when they jammed
him up with some stuff that they came back and
they said, hey, how do you what do you think
about donate aiding to the campaign? Now? Have you changed
your mind? And then his answer was yes, because now
you have pissed me off. Right, And this is his
own retail, right, He's like, earlier, I didn't care, Now
(27:11):
I'm angry at you. But Ben, don't you think it's
a little weird that they rated his compound, shot his dog,
did all of that stuff. I think that was right
when that happened. Isn't it weird that that occurred? They
threw him in jail, and then they dropped all the charges, Like, yeah,
if something was going on, But I'm trying to imagine
(27:32):
the scenarios. If something was going on, they found some stuff,
they put him in jail. He either bribed them and
pay them off to get out of jail, or they
just dropped the charges because nothing was happening. Those are
the only two things I can imagine. Or it wasn't
meant to stick. It was an intimidation. They were putting
him on notice. All right, that's the possibility. But you know,
(27:52):
I I don't mean to sound too old school about it,
but I think killing someone's dog is something that's literally
what to all those John Wick movies, you guys, I mean,
So yeah, this the neighbor before his death is also
politically active. He has written to the mayor about the
issue with McAfee's dogs, and then the neighbor also, Paul
(28:15):
also doesn't like the company that's on the McAfee compound.
He says, you know, this guy is surrounded by these dangerous,
trigger happy bodyguards and there are a lot a lot
of girls showing up there, and I believe they are
under age. So he is like he he has what
he feels are legitimate grievances, and it's important to know
(28:37):
it's more than just those nine dogs. So given all this,
and then later you know, as you said, no, Matt,
the guys found with a gunshot to the back of
his head, and he's been tasered multiple times. He's been
tasered multiple times. There is a shell case he found
like on the stairs leading to the second floor. No
forcible entry, no items taken from the house. Sorry, right, right, No,
(28:59):
you're right, Because they kept the doors to the first
floor open so that air would circulate to the second floor,
so you could just walk. Someone walked in and shot
him and nobody thought it was a suicide. With all
this information, you can see why the authorities of belize
whe whether you consider them crooked or not, you can
(29:19):
see how in this case they were like, yeah, we
should probably talk to his neighbor, you know, and and
so they knew, like his reputation, these earlier disagreements, he
was a notoriously hot headed dude. So they go to
question him. McPhee maintains his innocence. In fact, he later
writes an open letter to the family of the murder
(29:41):
victim and offers a twenty five thousand dollar reward for
information regarding the death, but he never gives the police
of Belize a chance to talk to her interview him.
He immediately, very publicly goes on the run, and he
like he disguises himself. He's he's dyed his hair, he's
(30:05):
stained his teeth. He said he dressed like a raggedy
salesman and didn't bathe for several days. Uh. But what
do we mean when we say he very publicly went
on the lamb. It was his golden age for interviews.
He was everywhere, uh soaking up the publicity and it
was partially um, the allure I think of notoriety and fame,
(30:29):
but it was also, in a very real sense, uh,
an insurance policy. Yeah, you can always find me, right,
I'm in the news all over the place, and I'm
making dates essentially on my calendar to have interviews. So
if he goes missing or something like that, it's just
very brazen, isn't it. It's like it's almost like a
bit that he's doing. Like in a similar way, those
(30:50):
YouTube videos are a bit like why bother disguising yourself
and going through all that trouble When you're just kind
of like out yourself publicly in that way. It seems
like he's he's literally saying, I'm invincible. Come at me, bro,
I'm not scared. What if he really believes like I'm
just and I'm just putting out there. I don't necessarily
believe this, But what if he really does truly believe
that the authorities and beliezes are out to get him
(31:14):
for something? Whatever? That thing is it? What? And And
so if we understand that, then maybe it explains his
actions a little better. I don't. I don't know if
it's tough to put ourselves in that his shoes, especially
if you believe that he killed his neighbor. There are
some scenarios where he does and doesn't kill his neighbor.
So we just don't know. Yeah, it's important. That's a
(31:37):
good point that because it's important to understand that from
his perspective, the way he's explained it, this um fleeing
the authorities is only a reaction to an escalating pattern
of like harassment and intimidation. That's that's the way that
he typically frames it. And how do we know that,
(31:58):
because again, he did so many interviews on the run
and He claimed that there was a conspiracy of foot
against him, that if he were thrown in jail and
believe he would be silenced because of shadowy forces that
were afraid of the information he possessed. This is the
beginning of his time alluding to what's called a dead
(32:19):
hand system or a dead man switch or a kill switch.
And that's you know, if you've listened to this show
for a while, you're familiar with this um. A lot
of countries, a lot of powerful individuals and organizations have
things like this. The idea is that you set up
just a quick and dirty idea is that you set
up a system or mechanism of some sort that requires
(32:40):
you to check in to verify your safety, freedom, and
health at you know, any given frequency, and then when
you fail that check in or when you don't make
that verification, it triggers an automated mechanism to release whatever
your blackmail or your compromat is. It's pretty effective when
it worked. But the big question for a lot of
(33:01):
people in the conspiracy world now is how come we
hear so much about these but we don't see them.
It's sort of like the informational equivalent of having like
a suicide vest on or something and saying you know,
if you if you attack me, you're all gonna go
down with me. Um. Yeah, But it could literally be
as simple as an email timer or a or a
(33:22):
social media post. I mean, there's like what we all
know that so many social media managers use these very
elaborate scheduling systems where you know, they don't do it
when it comes out, they have them scheduled weeks in
advanced sometimes, and that would be just as probably more effective, honestly,
is releasing this stuff like as a tweet to everyone
or it could be more targeted. Yeah. Absolutely, And this
(33:43):
this is going to play a big role in the
story which continues to unfold today. So he had clearly
he had made a calculation, clearly, and his logic was,
like we said that by staying in the public eye
he was safer than he would be if he was
fully like off the grid underground. He even had a
blog that I updated on the regular who was underground
(34:07):
for about a month and a half. And during this time, you'll,
I'm laughing because it's a weird statement. During this time,
the government of Belize is trying, in a way to
play a little bit nice because at least in their
public statements, we don't know what goes on in the
back rooms, right The Prime Minister at the time, a
guy named Dean Barrow, seems at a loss because they're
(34:30):
the government is continually saying, look again, hey John, if
you're listening, we haven't officially called you a murder suspect.
We just were your a purson of interest because you're
the neighbor. You'll love guns, you gotta temper. We're just
saying there's no smoking gun, but we need to talk
to you to investigate this crime. And at one point,
(34:52):
when he's referring to McAfee deep, Prime Minister Barrow says,
I don't want to be unkind to the gentleman, but
I believe he's extremely paranoid, even uh bonkers, which is
exactly what you would say if you wanted to paint
him as like, as a crazy person. But maybe he's
watching it, Matt and he's going, yeah, bonkers like a fox.
(35:16):
I just don't know that he really needed any help
painting himself as a bit of a paranoiac uh nut job.
But I'm just trying to ride this line here, guys.
Let's keep let's keep it going. Being paranoid does not
inherently conflicate to being delusionable, Absolutely not. And you're right,
there is there are signs that something was going on.
(35:38):
I mean, he he may well have had it coming, um,
but I have no doubt that that he had some
very powerful enemies. Oh yeah, of course. And and uh
he his run would have continued longer, most likely if
it were not for an accident on the part of
(35:58):
Vice Vice Man Magazine, Vice Media. They they've done some
really great work, you know, but in this case, they
they were following along with him, They were with him
while he was on the run or for part of
his journey, and they made a misstep, a very an
easy misstep to make, and in all likelihood an honest mistake.
(36:19):
And they weren't trying to get him busted, is what
we're saying. They uploaded a photo to their website that
contained location data, and this revealed that by this point
McAfee had crossed international borders and he was in Guatemala illegally. Remember,
(36:39):
and this at this point, multiple governments are paying attention.
They want to find him. And you know, one thing
that was odd to me about this is McAfee doesn't
seem really mad that the people involved. He's a very
paranoid dude, But he also believes it's just an honest mistake,
which seems counterintuitive to what we know about him. Right, Yeah,
(37:00):
surprisingly even handed for him, this stood out to me.
He's like, we immediately had to go on the run
again because we're in guatemala illegally at this point. But
it was no one's real fault. It was just the
fault of the moment Wow. I like that language. That's good.
The fault of the moment um. He was caught in
December in guatemala Um and he actually faked two separate
(37:25):
heart attacks, which, knowing we know about his predilection for
you know, certain extracurricular substances tracks um, in order to
avoid deportation to belieze and in many ways, I mean,
the only way that really matters. I guess it worked
because he was instead deported to Miami. And what do
you do after you've been arrested multiple times andtionally wanted fugitive.
(37:54):
You know what you do, Matt, You run for president.
That's exactly what you do. He was like, the he
like the proto Joe exotic, you know what I mean,
like really wild. Yeah, he was. He's I don't know
his opinion on tigers, but it was wild. It's so weird, weird,
Just a friendly remind fellow conspiracy realist. We're not at
the crazy part yet. This is just this guy's life
(38:15):
as it actually happened, and it's already pretty extraordinary. Matt,
You're absolutely right, goes to he goes to Miami. He's deported,
he's not going back to Belize, and in he announces
that he will run as a candidate for the Cyber
Party presidency of the United States of America. The Cyber Party,
(38:38):
as you know, is um not the most prominent political
organization in the US, so later he switches to the
Libertarian Party, which makes sense because he himself, you know,
has a spouse these views. Yeah, I feel like a
kid in middle school learning about what cybering is. Uh So,
(38:58):
it's like cyber It was always so funny when light Trump,
for example, or any kind of like you know, slightly
out of touch politician refers to just the Internet at
large as the cyber you know, yeah, it's you know,
I I wish we as a nation acknowledged that more often.
I'm not picking on any particular political party here, I'm
(39:21):
just saying, should the people who don't know how to
open email be in charge of laws about email? So
with spoiler alert, folks, he does not become the president
of the US in you know, he says, hey, I
mean second times charm. He runs again, and this time
(39:42):
he's running in exile. He's on a boat. He's an
international waters He says he's doing this to stay to
be out of reach of the I R S. Because
he's fleeing charges of felony tax evasion. How do you
run for president of the same country. Let's trying to arrestue.
He had a V for vendetta plan. This is a
(40:04):
true story. When asked about this, he said, okay, well,
which is what we're gonna do. We're gonna print thousands
of McAfee masked and my followers will wear them and
we'll you know, we'll have like flash mobs and we'll
have he called them road warriors. Said first, our road
warriors will go out once a month to appear in
(40:24):
parks and street corners and restaurants all around America. While
I like the mask would have like or these people
would be carrying loudspeakers and he would speak through the
loudspeaker while everyone looks at the masked faces. Yeah, which
is like, do you want that guy in charge of
your country? For sure? I mean you could definitely he
would kick acid community theater. It's like a really terrifying
(40:48):
street team, you know, or like campaign. Um seems to
be based on intimidation and just absolute weirdness. Um, he
paid all the fees and everything. You guys, like he
really went like he did it, we did it right?
Or was it more just you know, a pr stunt? Yeah,
open question, good question. Um. It can be hard to
ascribe his motivations, you know, are hard to divine them.
(41:11):
I should say. As far as whether this was all
publicity stunt or whether he genuinely believed that he would
be a good pick for the highest office in the land,
I tend to think that he was serious about it.
I tend to think he genuinely wanted to make a
go for it, but he he didn't wasn't successful. Fast
(41:32):
forward October twenty he is arrested in Spain at the
request of Uncle Sam. Yes. He's accused of dodging tax
returns for four years, despite raking in millions and millions
of dollars. At least the r S says from his
work with consulting cryptocurrencies, he's still in trouble for that
speaking engagements they charged for. He also sold his life rights,
(41:56):
because who doesn't want a movie about themselves. He also
got accused of hiding cash and hiding assets by putting
them in other people's names, you know, which is why
I like Matt Noel and I all have. You know,
we all have yachts, but they're all really pulse yachts.
The guy just has too many yachts. My big question here, guys,
(42:17):
and I don't remember reading this in my research, is
a So he got arrested at one point after the
whole quadmaladvice thing. He got deported to Florida. How long
was he there? Did when did he get released from
prison that time to then get picked up again? I
just didn't I didn't understand the timeline and I couldn't
find it. Yeah, it was a little It was a
(42:39):
little weird too. I don't think he was I don't
think it was locked up when he got to Miami.
I think it was just deported. They just got him
out of there. Okay, that was my misunderstanding. Thanks to guys,
that makes perfect sense. UM. But in March he was indicted,
so they didn't lock him up right away, but he
was indicted on other charges, including fraud and money laundering. UM.
(43:01):
The US Justice Department was now on his tail, alleging
that he and a unnamed business partner UM defrauded investors
of around thirteen million dollars by like we talked about earlier,
falsely promoting cryptocurrencies and McAfee. UM. He fought these charges
and claimed that he was being targeted by some kind
(43:24):
of shadowy cabal h that was after him for personal reasons. UM.
These were the very same forces that he would allege
have been chasing him across the entire globe. He never
really says who exactly they are, but they seem pretty
powerful and pretty scary, and let they want him dead.
At least that's, you know, the urgency with which he's
describing these things. UM. As that particular legal case went forward,
(43:47):
Spain ruled in favor of the extradition UM, concluding that
there was quote no revealing data or indication that Mr
McAfee could be subjected to any political persecute shan Uh. Then,
as we know um on June, John McAfee was found
dad in his cell and it's where he's reached the
(44:09):
conclusion they maintained today that John McAfee took his own life.
Would you be surprised to learn some people think there's
a conspiracy of foot Would you be surprised to know
that Ben is holding a spear, a tactical spear, across
his back as he says this, it's a spear summer
(44:31):
for me. Man, I don't want to tell you, but
of course absolutely no one's surprised to learn people are
questioning the official narrative. So at this point we're gonna
pause for a word from our sponsor and then we'll
return to the day of McAfee's death. Here's where it
gets crazy, finally, right, it's already been kind of crazy,
(44:54):
but now we're at the moment the death of John McAfee. First,
we did his life, Now we're at the part where
he died. McAfee's body was found in his cell at
the Brian's To Penitentiary Center, which is located close to Barcelona.
And this he was found dead just a few hours
after the Spanish National Court greenlit his extradition, who was
seventy five years old at the time. The authorities concluded
(45:18):
this that he was alone at the time of his death,
that he took his life via hanging. A later autopsy
confirms this by Spanish authorities, but his widow, Janice, requested
a second autopsy immediately upon release of that first autopsy,
and today she is one of the many people claiming
(45:38):
that McAfee did not commit suicide, but he was in
fact murder. His lawyer also seems skeptical at the very
least that's right. His lawyer, Javier Vilalba said, quote, at
no point had he shown any special worry or clue
that could let us think this could have happened. Um.
(45:58):
Similar to the kinds of sentiments we heard after the
alleged suicide of Jeffrey Epstein. Um. And it's a very
similar flood of Internet conspiracy theory, speculation, rumors, you know,
just going wild the and it's got the Internet going nuts,
as they say. Um. And a lot of this was because,
(46:20):
I mean, McAfee has been laying the groundwork for this
for his entire life for years, especially leading up to
his demise and it's tough to trace all the strings
of this web, due in part to his love of
being a showman an unreliable narrator, like, for an example,
multiple times he refused to acknowledge how much wealth he
(46:43):
did or did not possess, how much money he made
or lost in a given endeavor. And there's one interview
we'll play a clip from this where he admits that
he just makes up answers when people ask him how
much he's worth the business. And so the numbers that
I throw out members of I just random in your
life going out, it's the number four weeks. Good if
(47:05):
number forty four was the first two numbers of the
lottery when yesterday I was saying forty four, that's meaningless,
leave nothing, I said, when it comes to my work,
you know, So that's weird. But to your point, noel Um,
he was actively urging people to uh to refuse any
(47:27):
official narrative that said he committed suicide. And he got
very explicit with this on social media. Yeah, on November
en he made this tweet quote getting subtle messages from
US officials saying, in effect, we're coming for you McAfee.
We're going to kill yourself. Do you hear that right?
We are going to kill yourself. And then he said
(47:51):
I got a tattoo today just in case if I
suicide myself. I didn't. I was whacked. Check my right
arm and it says I believe money mine whacked w
H A C K D. And then on October, while
he's in jail in Spain, uh, he posts the following,
or someone post for him the following on Twitter quote,
(48:13):
I am contenting here, I have friends, the food is good.
All as well know that if I hang myself Allah Epstein,
it will be no fault of mine. M hmm. Yeah,
we're weird. Um. And though, here's one more thing to note.
Roughly sixty minutes after the the public was made aware
(48:34):
that he was dead, the official Instagram account of John
McAfee posted, then deleted, simply the letter Q. He had
a reference to Q and I trying to stir things up. Yeah,
I mean, he's just really laying it on thick, isn't me? Yeah?
With this one, it seems like you will find some
(48:54):
arguments that this Instagram post after his death was by
one his followers, and that like one of someone who
was associated with him, was actually running the accounts. But yeah,
you can see how this clearly looks like some something
is messed up in conspiracy land. So if he did
not actually take his own life, the next question would
(49:17):
be who did and why if we're just you know,
exploring this concept. If you go back to Twitter, you
see that he believes he has a nemesis. He says
on June nine, I've collective files on corruption in governments.
For the first time, I'm naming names and specifics. I'll
begin with a corrupt CIA agent and to Bahamanian officials
(49:38):
coming today. If I'm arrested or disappear, thirty one plus
terabytes of incriminated data will be released to the press.
That's also explicitly like I've got a dead hand. Oh yeah,
So that was twenty nineteen in June. Then in August
of he again affirms, confirms, tells everyone, I've got this
(50:00):
thing that's going to trigger if anything happens to me.
He specifically writes, quote, if I'm arrested or disappear or die,
every news outlet on the planet will be told the truth.
Those in power, if they have any sense, will pray
that I live free to one this is interesting we'll
get to who he's alluding to. But clearly he believes
facets of the U. S. Government are after him, right,
(50:22):
and we'll we'll find out why in just a second.
So before his death, his wife claims the US government.
She predicts that the US government will have a hand
in his murder, and she says that the U S
authorities are determined to have John die in prison and
make an example of him for speaking out against the
corruption within their government agencies. Edward Snowden returns to the
(50:45):
publics where he argues against extradition in general, given what
happens to a lot of people if they're extradited to
the U S. And he warns that, in his opinion,
Julian Assange could be next. Here's what McAfee says happened.
There's an interview where he claims that he had been
(51:06):
spying on the n essay that he had sold them
a ton of computers, and he had secretly built into
those computers the capability to monitor the US government. And
this information that he claims to have attained made him
a target for Uncle Sam. And if you hear him
talk about it, he is pretty vague regarding what he
(51:27):
exactly found you hear him talk about it. He had
learned the stuff they don't want you to know, and
the US would go to any lengths, legal or illegal
to keep that information secret. That's what he said. Why
in the hell with the U? S? Government by computers?
From John McAfee. I think, as we've learned from John McAfee,
(51:48):
he likes to throw up smoke screens. And if he
did actually have something, I think it would be related
to the McAfee and a virus software. We have mentioned
this before on the show, but I don't know how
in depth we've gone into it. I'm looking at my
computer right here. I have an antivirus software installed through
our company. What that software does is it scans every
(52:11):
file that comes through your computer. It scans every time
you connect something to your computer. It scans every network
connection you ever make. It knows what is happening on
your computer. Does that mean it can actually open and
read all of the files, Like can it actually look
at a text document or a picture or a video.
(52:31):
I don't believe it has that capability, especially back in
you know what, when he left antivirus software behind. But
I do believe he could have it. Is is it.
It is at least possible that he could have put
something into that innovirus software or used it in a
way that would have allowed him to see into government
(52:52):
owned and operated computers backdoor kind of situation. Yeah, it
is possible. It is um. He may also because we
have to remember again, by being the first of its kind,
McAfee as a business was near ubiquitous for a while,
right and they were making big contracts for a great
(53:13):
number of computers for a great number of services. So
it is not impossible at the very least, and that's
part of why people are running on overdrive sussing out
possible connections, some a little bit fantastical, but then others
disturbingly plausible. And right now as we're recording, the true
believers do think dead Hand has been activated. They do
(53:36):
think there is a kill switch. They believe that it
is oncoming, like it's it's on the way. Um. One
thing you'll find referenced is uh website called brit Ball
log Post dot biz. I saw that one. It's fun
to say, but it's uh. All it is is it's
(53:58):
it's like this one page where there is a countdown.
That's it like fifteen days and something as we record,
and then a couple of cryptic short messages. Something big
is coming. All the right people are scared and they
should be. And there's an ether scan dot io link
here that you can click on that I'm not going to.
(54:19):
I shouldn't have clicked on it. I guess. No, you know.
Ether scan is just like it's it's just a tracker
for ethereum transactions in the same way that like there's
one for every currency I think for the most part.
But it is an open record of all uh ethereum exchanges. Yes,
that's the idea. It will be released through etheroryum. Wow,
I mean that's oh no, it's a token. It's I'm sorry,
(54:43):
it's a it's a token. It is a token that
he that has been created called whacked whoa. Yeah, it's
it's a token called w h c k d um
and there is a supply. It gives you the supply.
There are twenty nine thousand holders and uh there have
been hundred seven transfers and you can see that whole record.
(55:06):
I wonder what the deals with that. If this is
literally just a scam to try to boost this currency,
or if he actually has something to do with it.
We don't know, we're not the right people. Yeah, this
website is for the right people to be scared. Shaker
fist at the sky. No, but that's like, that's the thing.
(55:26):
That's what's so tantalizing and fascinating about this is that
there is literally a ticking clock. Whether or not that
ticking clock is legit remains to be seen. At this point.
There have been no posthumous revelations from McAfee or as
his state. As far as the official narrative goes, that
is the end of the story. He was threatened with extradition,
(55:48):
the very real possibility of spending his life in the
US prison because remember seventy the charges that he was
facing could could have landed him in prison in for
thirty years, you know, not even counting any cryptocurrency stuff.
So they argue that he took the opportunity to end
(56:08):
his own life via hanging while he was alone. That's right,
he had a cellmate, the sellmate was not present. That's
another thing people point out and something that we have
to mention here. Reuter's put out a story that John
McAfee had attempted suicide in February in late February in
the same prison cell. Uh And you know who knows
(56:30):
that's a message from authorities. It's whether or not you
believe them that if it's true or not. There's no
video of him in that attempt. He was put on
suicide Watch mush in the same way Jeffrey Epstein was.
So it's some of the mirroring that's happening here with
how those two men were handled in prison. Is is
weirding me out right right? You know? It's it's not
(56:51):
enough for us to say that they're like clearly related,
it's satura or anything really definitive, but the core relations
are eerie. So that's the issue. This story continues after
the official conclusions. The government of Spain has reached its conclusion,
(57:11):
and they haven't shown that they're going to reopen the
investigation or anything like that. Theories about McAfee's death have
caught the attention of the Q and on crowd and
many people, regardless of their beliefs on Q and on,
they remain convinced that there is somewhere out there a
treasure trove of blackmail and secrets that will be released
in the near future. If such a cash exist, and
(57:34):
if it does get released, it will be one of
the strongest pieces of evidence for those theories surrounding his death.
But here's the tricky thing, as the devil of it all,
no matter what happens, what does or does not see
the light of day for decades to come, people are
going to be convinced that McAfee was murdered. You know,
(57:55):
And now we have to pass to you. I mean,
what what do you think, folks? Do you think he
took his own life? Do you think you was suicided?
How much um credence would you put in his public
statements and the statements of people who believe something other
than the official conclusion. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you.
You can find us in the normal social media places
on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. We are conspiracy stuff. On
(58:17):
Instagram we are conspiracy stuff. Show you Oh check out
Here's where it gets crazy. That's our Facebook page. You
can chat with all the other conspiracy realists. I bet
there will be some great threads about this episode going
so check that out for sure. Absolutely. You can also
reach us via telephone UM at one three s T
(58:37):
D W y t K. You've got three minutes um,
please let us know what to call you if you
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won't fit in that three minutes, why not send us
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(59:19):
they Don't Want You to Know is a production of
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with out our superproducer,
all mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist John McAfee is dead.
Over the course of his life, he was a study
(00:46):
in contradiction, hyperbole, and arguably at times of studying genius.
It's no secret that his views were extreme, and his
stories and his own recollections at times were a contradictor.
He made and lost a fortune. At least, he loved
the public spotlight, embraced it, and he died quite recently
(01:08):
in a Spanish prison cell while awaiting extradition to the
US on a litany of charges. In today's episode, we're
diving into the controversial twists and turns of his time
on Earth, and we're seeking to suss out the answer
to one burning question, did he in fact as officials
have concluded, take his own life, and why do so
(01:33):
many people question the official narrative. To answer this, we're
gonna have to start by learning a little bit more
about the man himself. And this is one of those
episodes where you know, we've still got the facts, still
got the crazy. Just be very well aware of folks,
The facts themselves are pretty insane in this case. So,
(01:53):
without further ado, here are the facts. Yeah, So let's
start with John McAfee's life first. John David McAfee was
born on September eighteenth of nineteen forty five on a
United States Army base UM. Specifically, it was the five
hundred and sixty nine Ordinance Ammunition Company, and that was
(02:14):
in Gloucestershire, England. His father was Don McAfee, an American
stationed on that base. While he was born in the
United Kingdom, McAfee grew up in Salem, Virginia, and in
nineteen sixty his father tragically took his own life UM,
something that may come into play in terms of hereditary
(02:36):
factors in McAfee's own passing UM. McAfee received his bachelor's
degree in math from Roanoke College seven years later in
nineteen sixty seven, and he would ultimately receive an honorary
doctor of Science degree from that college. Yeah, and he originally,
at least according to himself, Uh, he wanted to keep
(02:57):
going down that educational route. When when in nineteen sixty seven,
when he got his degree and he was at Northeast
Louisiana State College where he was doing such a thing.
He was trying to get a doctorate in mathematics, not
an honorary one and actual one. And uh, he ran
into some trouble the next year in nineteen sixty eight,
(03:20):
he ended up getting expelled because he had a relationship
with an undergrad and uh, it didn't go so great
in the educational department, but they did form a family.
They got married after after that whole thing happened, And
that would be number one out of the three of
which we are aware. Yeah, and he had numerous amorous
(03:45):
relationships right outside of marriage, both while he was married
and while he was legally single. Uh, this first marriage
was short lived. When you hear people talking about McAfee
himself now and you hear references to his wife, they're
talking about his third wife, Jess, who is alive as
we record this, so yeah, we already see some of
(04:09):
these contradictions and later interviews. McAfee goes on to say
that he started abusing drugs and alcohol pretty early in life.
I don't think he would necessarily use the term abuse.
He was a huge proponent of recreational drug use. But
we see these contradictions. A guy who was academically pretty
on point, but also you know, uh, considers himself a
(04:32):
bit of a casta nova, a bit of a ladies man,
uh and you know, parties in his mind just as
hard as he works. Kind of reminds me of almost
like a william S. Burrows figure in that way, someone
whom you know, advocated for the recreational use of drugs
and continued to use drugs until the day that he
he passed away. As well, he probably saw himself as
(04:54):
a sort of Tony Stark figure, right, tech Narati who
was beyond cool, and as we'll see, the cultivation of
his public image is something that he spent a great
deal of time thinking through. So he but again, inarguably
the guy is pretty intelligent, right, And I also want
(05:16):
to give a shout out to our pow Robert over
on behind the Bastards. Some time ago, they did a
two part episode on McAfee's life if you'd like to
learn more, But that was I believe that was recorded
before McAfee passed away. So he's a smart guy. He
goes to work for NASA and outfit in New York
from nine to nineteen seventy and he's working on the
(05:40):
Apollo program, so he's part of space exploration history. But
after that he takes his career to the private sector.
He works for Univac as a software designer, and then
he moves to Xerox as operating systems architect, and then
he becomes a software consultant at a place with the
honishingly creative name Computer Sciences Corporation. Well it was you know,
(06:05):
it was a new era at that time because names
like that, and also perhaps a presciently he worked for
a firm called Booze Alan Hamilton's in the early eighties UM.
And also, you know, while at Lockheed in the mid eighties,
he got hipped to IBM in their first computer virus.
This was a program called brain um and in six
(06:31):
This awareness of the idea of computer viruses ultimately changed
the direction of his career. And his life. He understood
that virus has posed a much larger threat than maybe
he was even realized at the time. Yeah, he saw
the shadow they would cast. Just before we move on,
you may recognize that name Booze Island Hamilton's if you're
(06:51):
listening to this. The reason why it stuck in my
brain is because there's another person who formerly worked for
a company. That person's name is Edward Snowden, and uh
they you know, the company has a very close link
with some of the intelligence services within the United States,
so that that may be a reason why you've heard
(07:12):
of them as well. It's a good weapon, it's a
great catch. Matt Edge shows up in today's episode later
as well. Before we move on, I do want to
say one thing in defense of the virus known as
brain first of its kind that people really clocked came
out in NINETI. But the story behind it is fascinating,
even though it's not really relevant in this episode. It
(07:35):
was created by these two, uh, this pair of Pakistani brothers,
and they didn't really have an ill intention. They like
almost like someone in a stadium in a sports game
who tries to start a wave. You know, you've got
to be brave or kind of drunk to try to
start a wave on your own. They were trying to
do that. They didn't really want to upset you know,
(07:56):
financial apple carts or anything. They literally just thought it
was a cool idea and they wanted, like someone doing
a way to the stadium to see how far it
could travel. How do we know because they put like
their real names and contact information in the code, and
the virus itself was named after their physical computer shop,
just saying they weren't trying to be like Shadowy in secret,
(08:19):
and they were like, hey, tell us if our the
cool thing works. And that's when McAfee was like, oh,
this could be the end of the world, and he
set up on his mission. This leads us like Noah
saying this, this is a milestone, a turning point for him.
He understands the danger viruses and malware could create, and
(08:40):
so he immediately goes to work making antivirus software with
the goal of automatically detecting and automatically removing similar programs.
By the next year, he's founded McAfee Associates, Incorporated to
sell the software. It is the first of its kind
commercially available, and it's weird because he's selling something that
(09:03):
fixes a problem most people at this point don't understand
is a problem. It's also a time where not nearly
as many crucial systems things like vehicles even for example,
or infrastructure, um, you know, maintenance were run by computers. Um.
It's something that he really did kind of see the
future of and take action. And uh, while we will
(09:26):
all come to associate McAfee software with sort of inconvenience
and maybe not being the most efficient at what it
was setting out to do, the fact that he had
that idea speaks to his his brilliance. Agreed, Yeah in
that regard for sure. And he's he's fighting a battle
on two fronts, or at least his goals are two fold. First, yeah,
(09:47):
making money is important, he's not a volunteer. He is
selling this. But secondly, he needs to to to make
those sales. He needs to spread awareness about the danger
of this new phenomenon. And he was accessibul on both fronts.
That's why today McAfee remains a well known software brand,
though as we as we've implied, a controversial one that
(10:11):
is known for having its take ups and being him
perfect by nine. In the early nineteen nineties, he McAfee
was making about five million dollars a year, nothing to
sneeze at. But at the same time that he was
bawling out financially, he was getting more and more disillusioned
(10:33):
with the company that he founded. He was beginning to
sour on the enterprise. And so you'll see like he
takes steps away from like being in executive management, he
takes further and further steps back, kind of like Jeff Bezos,
and then in he sells off everything he owns in
the company and then starts talking trash about them for
(10:55):
the rest of his life. He hates he does. He
hates them with a passion um. It makes sense that
that he would be bad at managing a company like
he seems like more of the idea man and less
the like nuts and bolts kind of day to day
kind of dude. You know, I don't know if I
want to do an escape room with him. Probably not.
He would just have a forty five holester and just
(11:16):
start shooting holes and things. He would be like hay on,
al Right, guys, First things first, where do you think
they put the cocaine? Like, I don't know, man escape
rooms don't usually have cocaine. He's like, I've got a
new business idea. And then he starts tearing the room
apart from the studs, looking for the status escape room.
(11:37):
It's all it's all cocaine based and he'll just figure
out the legalities later. Can I just give you a
reference for what I'm thinking about there, Because in John
McAfee started a YouTube channel, and I want to say
it was the first video he uploaded was titled how
to uninstall. Yeah, how to uninstall McAfee first video he
(12:00):
put up, and it it does just what we're discussing here.
He starts talking trash about McAfee antivirus software. Then he
proceeds to do bath salts. It's with a thing that
says bath salts and starts doing that with a bunch
of scantily clad women. And he's trying to figure out
how to uninstall McAfee antivirus software. And his solution is
(12:20):
to shoot a hole into the laptop. Oh well there.
It's also like, I mean, when I remember when this
came out, and I was not aware of the connection
between this this person and then the software. I just
assumed it was. I didn't I didn't even understand there
was a person involved. But he's obviously making this kind
of as a joke, a little bit tongue in cheek. Um,
I thought it was an absolute joke. This was some
(12:42):
kind of actor playing like this character that was this unhinged,
you know, anti virus impresario, but quickly found out that
it was true. He's also wearing like a Hugh Hefner
style kind of smoking jacket, and um, I think it's
it's pretty clearly a fake background that looks like some
sort of drawing room and like a country re estate.
Perhaps he was going for those big Dosaki's most interesting
(13:04):
man vibes and nailed it, nailed it. That's what He's
on a propaganda mission in a very real way. And
you know, you'll admit, you'll have to admit. There are
times where he is funny in interviews, like where he
genuinely says some amusing, insightful stuff, But being funny doesn't
(13:24):
make you a good person, which hopefully is not a
common misconception anyway. Yeah, so he he also holds a
grudge for serious for real forever, and the company McAfee
is high on his list, and he is has no
hesitation about saying so. In fact, you get the sense
(13:47):
he looks forward to talking about how much he hates them.
Intel eventually takes over McAfee in in that summer, and
for a lot of money, by the way, seven point
four billion. I think it's a ton because they were McAfee,
you know, regardless of whether or not you think it
works well today, it was the first of its kind
(14:10):
to market, so that's a huge deal. And people are
already kind of path dependent because they had it on
their computers. They didn't know, you know, they were scared
to not have it. So Intel sees the value in this.
They take over for a time. They try to change
the brand name to Intel Security. McAfee is over the
moon about this. He goes public and he says, quote,
(14:32):
I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me
from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet.
It was. It was a little premature in his celebration, though, folks,
because eventually the brand name switched back to McAfee again,
the first in the game. That brand recognition is priceless
(14:53):
to marketing, and it still operates under that name to
this day. But as we will find there is much
much more to this man's story than just the business
bearing his name. He was an object of fascination, controversy,
and tons of criticism in his adult years. Uh the guy,
If the guy was a D and D character he
(15:15):
did not like. Uh Honestly, diplomacy was his dump stat
He didn't particularly care to be diplomatic or worried too
much about his bedside manner when he had a disagreement
with someone and he was Uh, he was a libertarian.
He had views that a lot of people would consider extreme,
(15:37):
such as his belief that taxation itself, the concept, the
practice was illegal. Yeah. Yeah, that's the I mean, that's
how they got composed, right. He also openly admitted to
deceiving people about bitcoin, and this is this is just
one of the many controversies, but it's more recent one.
(15:58):
He had a massive following on Twitter, and he leveraged
that to get people on board with the idea of
cryptocurrency in and then just a little bit later January,
he's back on Twitter and he's like, yeah, you know,
I was a ruse. It was a scheme. Those statements.
I made those statements just to get more people on
board with cryptocurrency, So the question is how much money
(16:20):
did he make and wasn't a pumping up It's Yeah,
that's still weird to me that it's illegal for somebody
who in some way isn't like connected directly with a currency.
And I don't know, I don't even know how to
wrap my head around this, but it makes sense if
it's somebody with a ton of holdings that have shareholders
(16:42):
and they're like manipulating the system, that makes sense to
me why that would be illegal. It doesn't make sense
to me by somebody who just one person who has
a financial stake in something can't pig up the thing
in order to make more money. That's weird to me.
I'd be interested in seeing whatever statue it it is
that spells that out and like how how it actually
(17:03):
is phrased, because you're right, I mean, it's essentially using
your public persona and you're following for personal financial gain.
But how is that any different than like say, pimping
out a product or something like that, or um, you know,
just literally promoting yourself and like your your films or
something like that. Yeah, like the self as brand, right,
(17:26):
that's something that's very popular in the age of ubiquitous communication.
I think it's the knowing nous of it all, like
knowing that what he's planning to do is big up
it and then dump it. And if that can be proven,
then that obviously it's ethically dubious at best. But I
can see why there could be some statue that spells
out what makes that illegal, and there should be. The
(17:46):
Southern District of New York filed charges, uh, saying that
this was fraud and money laundering because they were they
were making money in a way that circumvented disclosure to investors.
And you know, honestly, that's how that's how a lot
of people end up in jails when you mess with
(18:07):
the money. If you're powerful enough, people let a lot
of things slide. But when you start messing with the
bank accounts, uh, that's that's when the sleeping giants awake.
And you can you can read the charges against him
for the allegations of crypto fraud. They were published on
or they went public on March five. So it goes
(18:28):
back to the idea they were swindling investors and what
are called i c o s or initial coin offerings,
that's where you can you know, buy crypto when it
like hits the quote unquote market. So they were making
money in illegal ways, that's what the charges were. Yeah,
I mean it's a lot like the story we covered
recently about the Phase Clan gamer kind of crew that was,
(18:51):
you know, kind of rigging these charity I c O
s uh and doing a similar pump and dump kind
of situation, just a slightly lower profile because he really
was just screaming it from the rooftops. Mccafee was like
he did everything pretty much, you know, yeah, yeah, it's
not not much of a whisper guy, but uh he
so he gets this, he gets this criticism, and he
(19:13):
you know, he's getting in trouble, but he's this is
not stopping him. We'll jump around in time just a
bit after he leaves the software company he founded, he
goes on to create a number of very short lived businesses.
Everything for like a lot of it's in the tech space,
everything from a firewall concept to uh instant messaging I
(19:38):
M system to a ranch that gives you shrike flights
and these were like hang gliders or a cabin in
them you would fly on there. So you know, he's
not all tech. I guess. Uh. But the story takes
a big turn when he travels down south. How far
(19:59):
south we talking talking about Central America? So I propose
we pause for a word from our sponsor and returned
to join John McFee in Belize. Okay, and we're back,
and now we are in Belize, in Central America. It
(20:20):
is two thousand eight. John McAfee is there. He, according
to the story, was there to start a company called
Quorum e X, which had a very interesting goal. Wanted
to sell herbal antibiotics. M hmm, okay, move to Belize,
sell herbs the dream Yes, and these could, allegedly, according
(20:44):
to the company, disrupt quote quorum sensing in bacteria. Hmm interesting. Interesting,
So correct me if I'm wrong here, Ben, But my
understanding of quorum sensing is almost exactly what it says
with the words, uh. The bacteria will form a quorum
(21:05):
at some point when there are enough of them together
because they use um particular biochemical signals to um not
decide what they're gonna do or when or how, but
when they all get together, sign signals are sent back
and forth and uh via the coreum and the things
(21:26):
we're going to disrupt the the signals. Essentially, you've got
the parliamentarian bacteria. You know, you've got the it's like
it's like congress basically. Well, I mean, but yeah, but
that means when bacteria, when enough bacteria gets together, you
get a colony. That's when things can go really wrong. Totally. Yeah.
Quorum sensing allows colonies of bacteria to It gives some
(21:48):
production coordination, amatch of them carry out collectively any number
of things that could be great for that colony in bacteria,
but maybe not so great for other things like human means.
So it's it's an idea that has a sound basis. Um.
We just don't know whether there was efficacy to those
(22:10):
herbal antibiotics or whether or not he was actually doing
that thing or not. He is the epitome of an
unreliable narrator. That is true. So things progressed with this
business until about two thousand and twelve when a part
of Belize's police force called the Gang Suppression Unit does
a kick door. They bust into the pooram X research
(22:31):
lab based on the suspicion that they have. They feel
like that reliable intel has informed them, uh, this is
actually a methamphetamine lab and that they're not making herbal antibiotics,
they're making crystal. And so the authorities go hard on
this guy. They take all they confiscate all his weapons.
(22:52):
And if you've seen any interviews, uh, regarding guns and
weaponry with him, you know he's a gun nut. He
loved it. He never had enough guns. He said, I
only feel safe if I'm in bed with a gun
and the doors locked. Yes, yeah, notoriously paranoid, yes. And
he also the thing is with those guns, they were
all licensed, they were legal for him to own them.
(23:14):
And the authorities also took his passport, meaning he could
not legally leave Belize. It also shot the dog he
had at the time they threw him in prison. Ultimately
they dropped all the charges. Yeah, and according to reports
from the authorities, when they got there to arrest him,
he was in bed with a sixteen year old girl. Um,
(23:36):
this is one of many allegations of this type that
we're going to hear as the story progresses. Um. It
really was only the beginning of his troubles in this country.
That same year, he had a neighbor that he was
constantly in dispute with, a guy by the name of
Gregory Fall they had some disagreements about McAfee's dogs. He
(23:57):
was really into dogs. He had nine of them, and
um Fall believed that they were a menace or at
the very least a nuisance. Uh reports that they were
like mean, I'm sure. I mean, the guy strikes me
as the type of dude that would encourage that type
of behavior. He's all about self protection and he's all about,
you know, having some sort of perimeter, and I'm sure
(24:18):
he trained the dogs to to be very vicious. I mean,
it makes sense. It tracks with his personality. Um. By
the way, this guy, Gregory Fall was was found dead
with a gunshot wound to the head, back in the head. Yeah,
I do want to before before you getting the details
of this, which is another pivotal event in his life,
right up there with learning about computer viruses. Matt. In
(24:40):
your research, you found something that I thought was just
a very telling encapsulation of McAfee's attitude and his communication style. Absolutely. Um.
After all of this happened in two thousand and twelve
and he went on the lamb, as they say, with
(25:00):
his with his wife at the time. I believe he
was making those those videos on YouTube. We talked about
the first one. The fourth video that he published was
titled John McAfee tells All Slash Raw And in this one,
he's in the same outfit NOL that you liked so much.
(25:21):
He's in the same backdrop, and he is it's he's
doing a tell all and he's answering to all of
the public discussion that's happening in the news about him
and his activities and specifically about his neighbor Craig. And
in this he's being silly again, but he's also being
serious and it's weird. He rides that line in such
(25:43):
a weird way. He says, a lot of people are
asking me questions. Here are the four most popular factual questions.
One did I murder my neighbor in Belize? Okay, let's
just get right to it too. Was I manufacturing illegal
drugs in Central America the cops think. Three was I
having sex with underage girls? That's literally what the cops said.
(26:06):
And was I using bath salts? I can answer a
resounding no to all three of those questions, But which
one was a yes? See that we don't know. We
don't know. I mean, he's he supposedly was doing bath salts.
In that previous video you described Matt, but I think
it was like literally like a container that said bath
salts on it, like it was meant to be very
(26:27):
tongue and shoo. It's the spectacle of it, you know.
And he also made a lot of enemies. It wasn't
just his neighbor. He alleges that some of the charges
against him were simply politically motivated because he refused to
donate to a campaign funds for local politician that lived
in his neighborhood. Yeah, he called him bribes, like all
(26:50):
just straight up bribes, right, And then when they jammed
him up with some stuff that they came back and
they said, hey, how do you what do you think
about donate aiding to the campaign? Now? Have you changed
your mind? And then his answer was yes, because now
you have pissed me off. Right, And this is his
own retail, right, He's like, earlier, I didn't care, Now
(27:11):
I'm angry at you. But Ben, don't you think it's
a little weird that they rated his compound, shot his dog,
did all of that stuff. I think that was right
when that happened. Isn't it weird that that occurred? They
threw him in jail, and then they dropped all the charges, Like, yeah,
if something was going on, But I'm trying to imagine
(27:32):
the scenarios. If something was going on, they found some stuff,
they put him in jail. He either bribed them and
pay them off to get out of jail, or they
just dropped the charges because nothing was happening. Those are
the only two things I can imagine. Or it wasn't
meant to stick. It was an intimidation. They were putting
him on notice. All right, that's the possibility. But you know,
(27:52):
I I don't mean to sound too old school about it,
but I think killing someone's dog is something that's literally
what to all those John Wick movies, you guys, I mean,
So yeah, this the neighbor before his death is also
politically active. He has written to the mayor about the
issue with McAfee's dogs, and then the neighbor also, Paul
(28:15):
also doesn't like the company that's on the McAfee compound.
He says, you know, this guy is surrounded by these dangerous,
trigger happy bodyguards and there are a lot a lot
of girls showing up there, and I believe they are
under age. So he is like he he has what
he feels are legitimate grievances, and it's important to know
(28:37):
it's more than just those nine dogs. So given all this,
and then later you know, as you said, no, Matt,
the guys found with a gunshot to the back of
his head, and he's been tasered multiple times. He's been
tasered multiple times. There is a shell case he found
like on the stairs leading to the second floor. No
forcible entry, no items taken from the house. Sorry, right, right, No,
(28:59):
you're right, Because they kept the doors to the first
floor open so that air would circulate to the second floor,
so you could just walk. Someone walked in and shot
him and nobody thought it was a suicide. With all
this information, you can see why the authorities of belize
whe whether you consider them crooked or not, you can
(29:19):
see how in this case they were like, yeah, we
should probably talk to his neighbor, you know, and and
so they knew, like his reputation, these earlier disagreements, he
was a notoriously hot headed dude. So they go to
question him. McPhee maintains his innocence. In fact, he later
writes an open letter to the family of the murder
(29:41):
victim and offers a twenty five thousand dollar reward for
information regarding the death, but he never gives the police
of Belize a chance to talk to her interview him.
He immediately, very publicly goes on the run, and he
like he disguises himself. He's he's dyed his hair, he's
(30:05):
stained his teeth. He said he dressed like a raggedy
salesman and didn't bathe for several days. Uh. But what
do we mean when we say he very publicly went
on the lamb. It was his golden age for interviews.
He was everywhere, uh soaking up the publicity and it
was partially um, the allure I think of notoriety and fame,
(30:29):
but it was also, in a very real sense, uh,
an insurance policy. Yeah, you can always find me, right,
I'm in the news all over the place, and I'm
making dates essentially on my calendar to have interviews. So
if he goes missing or something like that, it's just
very brazen, isn't it. It's like it's almost like a
bit that he's doing. Like in a similar way, those
(30:50):
YouTube videos are a bit like why bother disguising yourself
and going through all that trouble When you're just kind
of like out yourself publicly in that way. It seems
like he's he's literally saying, I'm invincible. Come at me, bro,
I'm not scared. What if he really believes like I'm
just and I'm just putting out there. I don't necessarily
believe this, But what if he really does truly believe
that the authorities and beliezes are out to get him
(31:14):
for something? Whatever? That thing is it? What? And And
so if we understand that, then maybe it explains his
actions a little better. I don't. I don't know if
it's tough to put ourselves in that his shoes, especially
if you believe that he killed his neighbor. There are
some scenarios where he does and doesn't kill his neighbor.
So we just don't know. Yeah, it's important. That's a
(31:37):
good point that because it's important to understand that from
his perspective, the way he's explained it, this um fleeing
the authorities is only a reaction to an escalating pattern
of like harassment and intimidation. That's that's the way that
he typically frames it. And how do we know that,
(31:58):
because again, he did so many interviews on the run
and He claimed that there was a conspiracy of foot
against him, that if he were thrown in jail and
believe he would be silenced because of shadowy forces that
were afraid of the information he possessed. This is the
beginning of his time alluding to what's called a dead
(32:19):
hand system or a dead man switch or a kill switch.
And that's you know, if you've listened to this show
for a while, you're familiar with this um. A lot
of countries, a lot of powerful individuals and organizations have
things like this. The idea is that you set up
just a quick and dirty idea is that you set
up a system or mechanism of some sort that requires
(32:40):
you to check in to verify your safety, freedom, and
health at you know, any given frequency, and then when
you fail that check in or when you don't make
that verification, it triggers an automated mechanism to release whatever
your blackmail or your compromat is. It's pretty effective when
it worked. But the big question for a lot of
(33:01):
people in the conspiracy world now is how come we
hear so much about these but we don't see them.
It's sort of like the informational equivalent of having like
a suicide vest on or something and saying you know,
if you if you attack me, you're all gonna go
down with me. Um. Yeah, But it could literally be
as simple as an email timer or a or a
(33:22):
social media post. I mean, there's like what we all
know that so many social media managers use these very
elaborate scheduling systems where you know, they don't do it
when it comes out, they have them scheduled weeks in
advanced sometimes, and that would be just as probably more effective, honestly,
is releasing this stuff like as a tweet to everyone
or it could be more targeted. Yeah. Absolutely, And this
(33:43):
this is going to play a big role in the
story which continues to unfold today. So he had clearly
he had made a calculation, clearly, and his logic was,
like we said that by staying in the public eye
he was safer than he would be if he was
fully like off the grid underground. He even had a
blog that I updated on the regular who was underground
(34:07):
for about a month and a half. And during this time, you'll,
I'm laughing because it's a weird statement. During this time,
the government of Belize is trying, in a way to
play a little bit nice because at least in their
public statements, we don't know what goes on in the
back rooms, right The Prime Minister at the time, a
guy named Dean Barrow, seems at a loss because they're
(34:30):
the government is continually saying, look again, hey John, if
you're listening, we haven't officially called you a murder suspect.
We just were your a purson of interest because you're
the neighbor. You'll love guns, you gotta temper. We're just
saying there's no smoking gun, but we need to talk
to you to investigate this crime. And at one point,
(34:52):
when he's referring to McAfee deep, Prime Minister Barrow says,
I don't want to be unkind to the gentleman, but
I believe he's extremely paranoid, even uh bonkers, which is
exactly what you would say if you wanted to paint
him as like, as a crazy person. But maybe he's
watching it, Matt and he's going, yeah, bonkers like a fox.
(35:16):
I just don't know that he really needed any help
painting himself as a bit of a paranoiac uh nut job.
But I'm just trying to ride this line here, guys.
Let's keep let's keep it going. Being paranoid does not
inherently conflicate to being delusionable, Absolutely not. And you're right,
there is there are signs that something was going on.
(35:38):
I mean, he he may well have had it coming, um,
but I have no doubt that that he had some
very powerful enemies. Oh yeah, of course. And and uh
he his run would have continued longer, most likely if
it were not for an accident on the part of
(35:58):
Vice Vice Man Magazine, Vice Media. They they've done some
really great work, you know, but in this case, they
they were following along with him, They were with him
while he was on the run or for part of
his journey, and they made a misstep, a very an
easy misstep to make, and in all likelihood an honest mistake.
(36:19):
And they weren't trying to get him busted, is what
we're saying. They uploaded a photo to their website that
contained location data, and this revealed that by this point
McAfee had crossed international borders and he was in Guatemala illegally. Remember,
(36:39):
and this at this point, multiple governments are paying attention.
They want to find him. And you know, one thing
that was odd to me about this is McAfee doesn't
seem really mad that the people involved. He's a very
paranoid dude, But he also believes it's just an honest mistake,
which seems counterintuitive to what we know about him. Right, Yeah,
(37:00):
surprisingly even handed for him, this stood out to me.
He's like, we immediately had to go on the run
again because we're in guatemala illegally at this point. But
it was no one's real fault. It was just the
fault of the moment Wow. I like that language. That's good.
The fault of the moment um. He was caught in
December in guatemala Um and he actually faked two separate
(37:25):
heart attacks, which, knowing we know about his predilection for
you know, certain extracurricular substances tracks um, in order to
avoid deportation to belieze and in many ways, I mean,
the only way that really matters. I guess it worked
because he was instead deported to Miami. And what do
you do after you've been arrested multiple times andtionally wanted fugitive.
(37:54):
You know what you do, Matt, You run for president.
That's exactly what you do. He was like, the he
like the proto Joe exotic, you know what I mean,
like really wild. Yeah, he was. He's I don't know
his opinion on tigers, but it was wild. It's so weird, weird,
Just a friendly remind fellow conspiracy realist. We're not at
the crazy part yet. This is just this guy's life
(38:15):
as it actually happened, and it's already pretty extraordinary. Matt,
You're absolutely right, goes to he goes to Miami. He's deported,
he's not going back to Belize, and in he announces
that he will run as a candidate for the Cyber
Party presidency of the United States of America. The Cyber Party,
(38:38):
as you know, is um not the most prominent political
organization in the US, so later he switches to the
Libertarian Party, which makes sense because he himself, you know,
has a spouse these views. Yeah, I feel like a
kid in middle school learning about what cybering is. Uh So,
(38:58):
it's like cyber It was always so funny when light Trump,
for example, or any kind of like you know, slightly
out of touch politician refers to just the Internet at
large as the cyber you know, yeah, it's you know,
I I wish we as a nation acknowledged that more often.
I'm not picking on any particular political party here, I'm
(39:21):
just saying, should the people who don't know how to
open email be in charge of laws about email? So
with spoiler alert, folks, he does not become the president
of the US in you know, he says, hey, I
mean second times charm. He runs again, and this time
(39:42):
he's running in exile. He's on a boat. He's an
international waters He says he's doing this to stay to
be out of reach of the I R S. Because
he's fleeing charges of felony tax evasion. How do you
run for president of the same country. Let's trying to arrestue.
He had a V for vendetta plan. This is a
(40:04):
true story. When asked about this, he said, okay, well,
which is what we're gonna do. We're gonna print thousands
of McAfee masked and my followers will wear them and
we'll you know, we'll have like flash mobs and we'll
have he called them road warriors. Said first, our road
warriors will go out once a month to appear in
(40:24):
parks and street corners and restaurants all around America. While
I like the mask would have like or these people
would be carrying loudspeakers and he would speak through the
loudspeaker while everyone looks at the masked faces. Yeah, which
is like, do you want that guy in charge of
your country? For sure? I mean you could definitely he
would kick acid community theater. It's like a really terrifying
(40:48):
street team, you know, or like campaign. Um seems to
be based on intimidation and just absolute weirdness. Um, he
paid all the fees and everything. You guys, like he
really went like he did it, we did it right?
Or was it more just you know, a pr stunt? Yeah,
open question, good question. Um. It can be hard to
ascribe his motivations, you know, are hard to divine them.
(41:11):
I should say. As far as whether this was all
publicity stunt or whether he genuinely believed that he would
be a good pick for the highest office in the land,
I tend to think that he was serious about it.
I tend to think he genuinely wanted to make a
go for it, but he he didn't wasn't successful. Fast
(41:32):
forward October twenty he is arrested in Spain at the
request of Uncle Sam. Yes. He's accused of dodging tax
returns for four years, despite raking in millions and millions
of dollars. At least the r S says from his
work with consulting cryptocurrencies, he's still in trouble for that
speaking engagements they charged for. He also sold his life rights,
(41:56):
because who doesn't want a movie about themselves. He also
got accused of hiding cash and hiding assets by putting
them in other people's names, you know, which is why
I like Matt Noel and I all have. You know,
we all have yachts, but they're all really pulse yachts.
The guy just has too many yachts. My big question here, guys,
(42:17):
and I don't remember reading this in my research, is
a So he got arrested at one point after the
whole quadmaladvice thing. He got deported to Florida. How long
was he there? Did when did he get released from
prison that time to then get picked up again? I
just didn't I didn't understand the timeline and I couldn't
find it. Yeah, it was a little It was a
(42:39):
little weird too. I don't think he was I don't
think it was locked up when he got to Miami.
I think it was just deported. They just got him
out of there. Okay, that was my misunderstanding. Thanks to guys,
that makes perfect sense. UM. But in March he was indicted,
so they didn't lock him up right away, but he
was indicted on other charges, including fraud and money laundering. UM.
(43:01):
The US Justice Department was now on his tail, alleging
that he and a unnamed business partner UM defrauded investors
of around thirteen million dollars by like we talked about earlier,
falsely promoting cryptocurrencies and McAfee. UM. He fought these charges
and claimed that he was being targeted by some kind
(43:24):
of shadowy cabal h that was after him for personal reasons. UM.
These were the very same forces that he would allege
have been chasing him across the entire globe. He never
really says who exactly they are, but they seem pretty
powerful and pretty scary, and let they want him dead.
At least that's, you know, the urgency with which he's
describing these things. UM. As that particular legal case went forward,
(43:47):
Spain ruled in favor of the extradition UM, concluding that
there was quote no revealing data or indication that Mr
McAfee could be subjected to any political persecute shan Uh. Then,
as we know um on June, John McAfee was found
dad in his cell and it's where he's reached the
(44:09):
conclusion they maintained today that John McAfee took his own life.
Would you be surprised to learn some people think there's
a conspiracy of foot Would you be surprised to know
that Ben is holding a spear, a tactical spear, across
his back as he says this, it's a spear summer
(44:31):
for me. Man, I don't want to tell you, but
of course absolutely no one's surprised to learn people are
questioning the official narrative. So at this point we're gonna
pause for a word from our sponsor and then we'll
return to the day of McAfee's death. Here's where it
gets crazy, finally, right, it's already been kind of crazy,
(44:54):
but now we're at the moment the death of John McAfee. First,
we did his life, Now we're at the part where
he died. McAfee's body was found in his cell at
the Brian's To Penitentiary Center, which is located close to Barcelona.
And this he was found dead just a few hours
after the Spanish National Court greenlit his extradition, who was
seventy five years old at the time. The authorities concluded
(45:18):
this that he was alone at the time of his death,
that he took his life via hanging. A later autopsy
confirms this by Spanish authorities, but his widow, Janice, requested
a second autopsy immediately upon release of that first autopsy,
and today she is one of the many people claiming
(45:38):
that McAfee did not commit suicide, but he was in
fact murder. His lawyer also seems skeptical at the very
least that's right. His lawyer, Javier Vilalba said, quote, at
no point had he shown any special worry or clue
that could let us think this could have happened. Um.
(45:58):
Similar to the kinds of sentiments we heard after the
alleged suicide of Jeffrey Epstein. Um. And it's a very
similar flood of Internet conspiracy theory, speculation, rumors, you know,
just going wild the and it's got the Internet going nuts,
as they say. Um. And a lot of this was because,
(46:20):
I mean, McAfee has been laying the groundwork for this
for his entire life for years, especially leading up to
his demise and it's tough to trace all the strings
of this web, due in part to his love of
being a showman an unreliable narrator, like, for an example,
multiple times he refused to acknowledge how much wealth he
(46:43):
did or did not possess, how much money he made
or lost in a given endeavor. And there's one interview
we'll play a clip from this where he admits that
he just makes up answers when people ask him how
much he's worth the business. And so the numbers that
I throw out members of I just random in your
life going out, it's the number four weeks. Good if
(47:05):
number forty four was the first two numbers of the
lottery when yesterday I was saying forty four, that's meaningless,
leave nothing, I said, when it comes to my work,
you know, So that's weird. But to your point, noel Um,
he was actively urging people to uh to refuse any
(47:27):
official narrative that said he committed suicide. And he got
very explicit with this on social media. Yeah, on November
en he made this tweet quote getting subtle messages from
US officials saying, in effect, we're coming for you McAfee.
We're going to kill yourself. Do you hear that right?
We are going to kill yourself. And then he said
(47:51):
I got a tattoo today just in case if I
suicide myself. I didn't. I was whacked. Check my right
arm and it says I believe money mine whacked w
H A C K D. And then on October, while
he's in jail in Spain, uh, he posts the following,
or someone post for him the following on Twitter quote,
(48:13):
I am contenting here, I have friends, the food is good.
All as well know that if I hang myself Allah Epstein,
it will be no fault of mine. M hmm. Yeah,
we're weird. Um. And though, here's one more thing to note.
Roughly sixty minutes after the the public was made aware
(48:34):
that he was dead, the official Instagram account of John
McAfee posted, then deleted, simply the letter Q. He had
a reference to Q and I trying to stir things up. Yeah,
I mean, he's just really laying it on thick, isn't me? Yeah?
With this one, it seems like you will find some
(48:54):
arguments that this Instagram post after his death was by
one his followers, and that like one of someone who
was associated with him, was actually running the accounts. But yeah,
you can see how this clearly looks like some something
is messed up in conspiracy land. So if he did
not actually take his own life, the next question would
(49:17):
be who did and why if we're just you know,
exploring this concept. If you go back to Twitter, you
see that he believes he has a nemesis. He says
on June nine, I've collective files on corruption in governments.
For the first time, I'm naming names and specifics. I'll
begin with a corrupt CIA agent and to Bahamanian officials
(49:38):
coming today. If I'm arrested or disappear, thirty one plus
terabytes of incriminated data will be released to the press.
That's also explicitly like I've got a dead hand. Oh yeah,
So that was twenty nineteen in June. Then in August
of he again affirms, confirms, tells everyone, I've got this
(50:00):
thing that's going to trigger if anything happens to me.
He specifically writes, quote, if I'm arrested or disappear or die,
every news outlet on the planet will be told the truth.
Those in power, if they have any sense, will pray
that I live free to one this is interesting we'll
get to who he's alluding to. But clearly he believes
facets of the U. S. Government are after him, right,
(50:22):
and we'll we'll find out why in just a second.
So before his death, his wife claims the US government.
She predicts that the US government will have a hand
in his murder, and she says that the U S
authorities are determined to have John die in prison and
make an example of him for speaking out against the
corruption within their government agencies. Edward Snowden returns to the
(50:45):
publics where he argues against extradition in general, given what
happens to a lot of people if they're extradited to
the U S. And he warns that, in his opinion,
Julian Assange could be next. Here's what McAfee says happened.
There's an interview where he claims that he had been
(51:06):
spying on the n essay that he had sold them
a ton of computers, and he had secretly built into
those computers the capability to monitor the US government. And
this information that he claims to have attained made him
a target for Uncle Sam. And if you hear him
talk about it, he is pretty vague regarding what he
(51:27):
exactly found you hear him talk about it. He had
learned the stuff they don't want you to know, and
the US would go to any lengths, legal or illegal
to keep that information secret. That's what he said. Why
in the hell with the U? S? Government by computers?
From John McAfee. I think, as we've learned from John McAfee,
(51:48):
he likes to throw up smoke screens. And if he
did actually have something, I think it would be related
to the McAfee and a virus software. We have mentioned
this before on the show, but I don't know how
in depth we've gone into it. I'm looking at my
computer right here. I have an antivirus software installed through
our company. What that software does is it scans every
(52:11):
file that comes through your computer. It scans every time
you connect something to your computer. It scans every network
connection you ever make. It knows what is happening on
your computer. Does that mean it can actually open and
read all of the files, Like can it actually look
at a text document or a picture or a video.
(52:31):
I don't believe it has that capability, especially back in
you know what, when he left antivirus software behind. But
I do believe he could have it. Is is it.
It is at least possible that he could have put
something into that innovirus software or used it in a
way that would have allowed him to see into government
(52:52):
owned and operated computers backdoor kind of situation. Yeah, it
is possible. It is um. He may also because we
have to remember again, by being the first of its kind,
McAfee as a business was near ubiquitous for a while,
right and they were making big contracts for a great
(53:13):
number of computers for a great number of services. So
it is not impossible at the very least, and that's
part of why people are running on overdrive sussing out
possible connections, some a little bit fantastical, but then others
disturbingly plausible. And right now as we're recording, the true
believers do think dead Hand has been activated. They do
(53:36):
think there is a kill switch. They believe that it
is oncoming, like it's it's on the way. Um. One
thing you'll find referenced is uh website called brit Ball
log Post dot biz. I saw that one. It's fun
to say, but it's uh. All it is is it's
(53:58):
it's like this one page where there is a countdown.
That's it like fifteen days and something as we record,
and then a couple of cryptic short messages. Something big
is coming. All the right people are scared and they
should be. And there's an ether scan dot io link
here that you can click on that I'm not going to.
(54:19):
I shouldn't have clicked on it. I guess. No, you know.
Ether scan is just like it's it's just a tracker
for ethereum transactions in the same way that like there's
one for every currency I think for the most part.
But it is an open record of all uh ethereum exchanges. Yes,
that's the idea. It will be released through etheroryum. Wow,
I mean that's oh no, it's a token. It's I'm sorry,
(54:43):
it's a it's a token. It is a token that
he that has been created called whacked whoa. Yeah, it's
it's a token called w h c k d um
and there is a supply. It gives you the supply.
There are twenty nine thousand holders and uh there have
been hundred seven transfers and you can see that whole record.
(55:06):
I wonder what the deals with that. If this is
literally just a scam to try to boost this currency,
or if he actually has something to do with it.
We don't know, we're not the right people. Yeah, this
website is for the right people to be scared. Shaker
fist at the sky. No, but that's like, that's the thing.
(55:26):
That's what's so tantalizing and fascinating about this is that
there is literally a ticking clock. Whether or not that
ticking clock is legit remains to be seen. At this point.
There have been no posthumous revelations from McAfee or as
his state. As far as the official narrative goes, that
is the end of the story. He was threatened with extradition,
(55:48):
the very real possibility of spending his life in the
US prison because remember seventy the charges that he was
facing could could have landed him in prison in for
thirty years, you know, not even counting any cryptocurrency stuff.
So they argue that he took the opportunity to end
(56:08):
his own life via hanging while he was alone. That's right,
he had a cellmate, the sellmate was not present. That's
another thing people point out and something that we have
to mention here. Reuter's put out a story that John
McAfee had attempted suicide in February in late February in
the same prison cell. Uh And you know who knows
(56:30):
that's a message from authorities. It's whether or not you
believe them that if it's true or not. There's no
video of him in that attempt. He was put on
suicide Watch mush in the same way Jeffrey Epstein was.
So it's some of the mirroring that's happening here with
how those two men were handled in prison. Is is
weirding me out right right? You know? It's it's not
(56:51):
enough for us to say that they're like clearly related,
it's satura or anything really definitive, but the core relations
are eerie. So that's the issue. This story continues after
the official conclusions. The government of Spain has reached its conclusion,
(57:11):
and they haven't shown that they're going to reopen the
investigation or anything like that. Theories about McAfee's death have
caught the attention of the Q and on crowd and
many people, regardless of their beliefs on Q and on,
they remain convinced that there is somewhere out there a
treasure trove of blackmail and secrets that will be released
in the near future. If such a cash exist, and
(57:34):
if it does get released, it will be one of
the strongest pieces of evidence for those theories surrounding his death.
But here's the tricky thing, as the devil of it all,
no matter what happens, what does or does not see
the light of day for decades to come, people are
going to be convinced that McAfee was murdered. You know,
(57:55):
And now we have to pass to you. I mean,
what what do you think, folks? Do you think he
took his own life? Do you think you was suicided?
How much um credence would you put in his public
statements and the statements of people who believe something other
than the official conclusion. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you.
You can find us in the normal social media places
on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. We are conspiracy stuff. On
(58:17):
Instagram we are conspiracy stuff. Show you Oh check out
Here's where it gets crazy. That's our Facebook page. You
can chat with all the other conspiracy realists. I bet
there will be some great threads about this episode going
so check that out for sure. Absolutely. You can also
reach us via telephone UM at one three s T
(58:37):
D W y t K. You've got three minutes um,
please let us know what to call you if you
have a nickname. We're all about nicknames here, and you
might hear yourself in your story on one of our
weekly UH Listener Male episodes. Also, if you feel like
it got more that you want to tell us that
won't fit in that three minutes, why not send us
a supplementary email. You can do that by writing to
us at conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff
(59:19):
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