A Change In Direction But Still In The Deep End

John McAfee, with the help of his lawyer, arranged his deportation from Guatemala to Miami in late 2012. He arrived in Miami with nothing but the clothes on his back, but ecstatic about his newfound freedom. In his first sit-down interview since his month on the run from murder accusations in Belize, where authorities had tried to implicate him in the 2012 murder of his 54-year-old neighbor, Gregory Faull, he said he is broke.

“All of my assets and all of my money is in Belizean banks,” McAfee said

He pulled out a wad of cash consisting of $5 bills and said grinning and very appreciative, that someone had slipped it to him in the dead of night help him out as he was entering his hotel room in Miami. This was his opportunity to start anew. 

He then hired a prostitute with that brick of cash the day after he was deported. Her name was Janice Dyson and McAfee hired her for a day and a night after meeting her in a Miami Beach cafe. He was instantly besotted with her butt and then realized she was what he was looking for his entire life.  McAfee reportedly rescued her from a violent pimp and years of sex trafficking. Meeting and hooking up with McAfee also allowed Janice to reconnect with her estranged son and rebuild her life.   

Finding True Love

Although Janice Dyson is more than 30 years younger than McAfee he is deferential to her.  He adores her and they were married in 2013. He has happily resigned himself to be a one-woman man and now both embarking on a new life together and the next adventure of John and Mrs. McAfee.  

John and Janice McAfee spent the next few months constantly on the move from town to town and hotel to hotel as he believed he was constantly being hunted. He made it common knowledge he was always armed and had won numerous shooting contests, supposedly to warn his pursuers not to mess with him. 

Meanwhile, back in Orange Walk, Belize, a bushfire burned his compound to the ground. When asked what he thought may have happened he replied, 

“ I believe that there are a select few with great power in Belize that will go to great lengths to harm me. This fire was not just a strange coincidence.”

It was around this time the John McAfee began to embrace his public persona as an eccentric and self-destructive millionaire. Prior to that, he presented himself as a strict tea totaler, placing newspaper ads to expose drug houses in his neighborhood of Belize. According to many close associates, he ran his compound very strictly, not allowing or using any drugs or alcohol on the premises.  

Reportedly, McAfee states that he spent most of 2014, on the road, bouncing from Ireland to Scotland and then to the southwest fleeing from the Sinaloa Cartel that he believes the Belizean government hired to either (a) kill him, (b) capture him, or (c) drive him bananas. However, in actuality, McAfee was residing was Montreal, Canada, where he worked as a consultant,  before he, as his wife moved to a small city called Lexington in Henderson County, Tennessee.

While living on a rural property in Lexington, Tennessee,  John and his wife Janice had fun making a rap video with the Coin Bros. basically depicting some of the events of McAfee’s time in Belize, quite aptly named  The McAfee Effect. 

 

Back To Business

By 2015, he started a company called Future Tense Central which acquired cybersecurity products. One such product was called D-Vasive which protected users from malicious apps attempting to gain access to a phone’s features that were sensitive to infiltration such as its camera and wifi. Unfortunately, D-Vasive ended up being a commercial failure.

 

 McAfee became the chairman and CEO of MGT Capital Investments, after meeting its former head, Robert Ladd who asked him to come on board. At the time MGT was seemingly focused on acquiring, developing and monetizing intellectual property assets, but in reality, it functioned as a penny stock pump and dump scam that went on to be investigated by the SEC. 

Needless to say, McAfee was implicated but surprisingly he got off relatively unscathed. MGT, the company, and the former President and CEO Robert Ladd of MGT were hit with a class-action lawsuit as it was alleged he manipulated the price of company shares by participating in the pump and dump scheme. 

McAfee was mainly hired to be the face of the company, create a buzz and raise awareness of MGT which he did very successfully via his twitter page. When McAfee talks or condones something, people listen. MGT went on to be the second most traded stock in the US within a week. It saw a 1000% stock jump after McAfee was appointed CEO. The reality is MGT hired McAfee to pump the stock price. MGT was all about promotions and nothing about business operations. MGT was one big scam. 

John McAfee left the company before the lawsuit and set his sights on the cryptocurrency craze. With his tech background and wild man image, he was well suited to become a major figure in the 21-century gold rush that is the cryptocurrency world.  But not before he was publically displayed in a Showtime documentary as a murderer, rapist and so-called druglord.

John McAfee Continues To Make Headlines

In 2012, McAfee was all over the headlines when he fled his former home, Belize after local police sought to question him about the murder of a neighbor. (They eventually said he wasn’t a suspect) And in 2015, he made waves with a run for the Libertarian Party nomination for the President of the United States. (The nomination was eventually won by New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.)

In 2016,  McAfee was all over the news again. And the headlines ain’t pretty. The documentary about McAfee’s time in Belize alleges that he committed not one but two murders, and raped a Harvard biologist who was running a lab with him in the town of Orange Walk. The film was originally shown at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. Called Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee, it paints a disturbing picture of a man gripped by both power and paranoia. And, quite literally, according to the movie, a man who got away with murder.

Filmmaker Nannette Burnstein certainly was out to prove him guilty on all counts and she doesn’t leave much to the imagination. There has been a lot of controversy with regard to making the film, including payoffs by Burnstein and the subsequent retractions by witnesses. 

McAfee did respond with a 4-page rebuttal stating he was falsely accused and tainted for years by the press. He asserts that he has been demonized and the film is completely wrong and a little hard to follow, let alone believe. As he writes in his rebuttal “Preposterous! Yes indeed. Entirely so. I had a hard time believing it myself”.      

More to come… 

 

 

David Ogden
Entrepreneur @Markethive, a global Market Network, and  also a strong advocate for technology, progress, and freedom of speech.  I embrace "Change" with a passion and my purpose in life is to help people understand, accept and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals.

 

 

 

 

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

John McAfee – The Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, and Prankster

There are many sides to John McAfee. The Silicon Valley multi-millionaire, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, the party animal, prankster, the international fugitive, presidential candidate, cybersecurity guru and now considered a crypto expert where his advocacy for many ICO’s is largely sought after. 

Back in the 1970s and 80’s John McAfee developed a serious drug habit, including while he worked as a programmer at NASA. He even “dealt” drugs for a while but says he has not touched drugs for 35 years. Some would argue but to me, he just seems to be high on life.

John McAfee pioneered anti-virus software bearing his name that is still used by millions of computers today. John said he created the McAfee anti-virus software in less than two days and 4 million people were using it within a month. He made his fortune when he sold his security software company. Over the years he spent millions on properties, fine arts, and vintage cars.

After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, McAfee publically announced in 2009 that he lost most of his fortune. He did sell a Rodeo and a property in New Mexico but later said he was just “using” the media when he said he lost his fortune. He even staged auctions to try and fool the media. 

“I’ve had 200 lawsuits because my name is John McAfee. No, I did not lose everything. I wanted to stop people trying to sue me”, MacAfee said. “No, I did not lose my fortune! I’m not that stupid.” 

 

The Seachange

Later in 2009, McAfee took a Carribean seachange and bought a home in Ambergris Caye, a little island off the Belize mainland where he lived with his what some call a harem of ladies, an entourage of armed guards and a pack of guard dogs. He also bought a secluded property, deep in the jungle in Orange Walk where he was working on a plant-based antibiotic. 

John had no expertise in this area but being the entrepreneur that he is, it was a topic that interested him greatly so he built a laboratory, hired a microbiologist to help manufacture what he believed to be the next innovation in health care. Perhaps the next wonder drug. 

McAfee – The Philanthropist

McAfee was happy in the fact he was also helping the locals by feeding poor families and providing them with jobs. The philanthropic part of his nature. It was either generosity or self-interest that prompted McAfee to also donate masses of equipment to the Belize police. Equipment consisting of guns, tasers, handcuffs, pepper spray, batons, etc. He even built them a police station in the town of Orange Walk. McAfee said they would often drive by his house waving their weapons and saluting with gratitude. “It empowered them,” he said. 

 

 

But then, McAfee was starting to ruffle some feathers as he was employing thugs and ex-criminals for his security team. He appointed himself as a crimefighter to chase off the local drug dealers and had some success. But his troubles really began when he refused to pay a bribe to a senior politician. 

He claims that the politician was probably close to $2 million a year out of pocket he was getting from the drug trade before McAfee threw the drug dealers out of the area, so the politician’s way of thinking was that McAfee owed it to him. At that point, the politician went away, all went quiet and McAfee thought that was the end of that saga. 
 
A week later when McAfee thought all was going well and he was on the verge of something with the development of his antibiotics project when the politician along with the Belize government caused a raid on his lab in 2012 by the police department’s Gang Suppression Unit for suspicion of manufacturing methamphetamine in his lab at Orange Walk. McAfee’s lab was destroyed. He says the raid was retribution for his refusal to be extorted by the government. 

He also claims the Sinaloa Cartel runs the Belize government and they want him to shut up as he knows too much about the corruption there. No law enforcement agency would corroborate his claims. 

Notably, no methamphetamine was found at the lab and he was never charged. McAfee abandoned the jungle and moved back to his home in Ambergris Caye. 

Many people of the town were working at the lab or collecting flowers for processing antibiotics, so they knew it wasn’t a drug lab, but they had to have some legal reason to obtain the warrant so the authorities arrested him with weapons charges. They then released him after they held him for hours in handcuffs. They also shot his dog in front of his eyes. McAfee is still seething at the injustice.  

Paranoia Or Preparedness

John McAfee has since had a meager lifestyle seeking out safe havens in which he feels he has total control of his surroundings. Some say John McAfee is paranoid, but he says “it’s not about paranoia but about being prepared”. Although he is the first to admit that maybe he must be a little paranoid to be able to develop the security software. (Tongue in cheek)   

Since he started McAfee, his software company, he has carried weapons for protection. McAfee says “I have no fascination with guns, I have a fascination with survival.”

The Prankster

McAfee is a renowned prankster so he created this satirical video on how to uninstall the McAfee Anti-virus software. Throughout the video, he makes light his harem of 7 ladies that lived with him in Belize and of his affinity with weapons and drugs. The company that now owns the software that still bears his name called the video ludicrous and said it has no basis in reality. 

When asked in an interview why he makes these bizarre videos, his reply at that time to the media who he considered his most recent enemy was, 

“Why not? Because I’m 67 and bored is one reason. It’s a lot of fun, I get to hang out with scantily clad cute gals is the second reason, and the third reason is, I  get to say something that the world will actually listen to that you can’t edit”.

 

 

The running theme in McAfee’s life is the danger posed by “others.” This is possibly why he was able to not only diagnose computer viruses before anyone else but also prescribe an antidote being the McAfee anti-virus. 

John McAfee’s consistent and passionate warnings about cybersecurity need to be heeded…

“Our freedoms are being restricted," he said. "Our security is being eroded, and we have no more privacy. If we lose privacy, we lose civilization and we will certainly lose our humanity.”

McAfee is quite the enigma and he probably summed it up best when he was asked…: 
How would you define yourself? Are you a madman? Are you paranoid? Are you an entrepreneur? Who are you?

“All of the above," McAfee answered. "I mean, I’m a mad man to some people because, I don’t follow the normal rules, you know, the drummer that leads me is an odd drummer. But I follow the sound.”

He has been involved in a tremendous amount of nastiness during his life but beyond that McAfee is charming. He speaks with a tone that alternates between confidential and menacing. He’s very polite and prone to physically taking people under his wing. He wraps his arm around them as he talks. He talks fast and when he talks about the things he cares about his voice cracks with passion. 
To be continued… 

 

 

 

Deb Williams
Market Manager for Markethive, a global Market Network, and Writer for the Crypto/Blockchain Industry. Also a strong advocate for technology, progress, and freedom of speech.  I embrace "Change" with a passion and my purpose in life is to help people understand, accept and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals. 

 

 

 

 

 

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden