John David McAfee (75) was found dead yesterday afternoon in the Brians 2 prison in Sant Esteve de Sesrovires (Barcelona), reports the Spanish daily El PAIS.
One of the most famous personalities in the crypto world apparently did not bear the fact that he should return to the US after almost 9 months, where he would face a lawsuit and allegations of tax evasion.
The fact that it was a suicide by hanging was confirmed by several sources, among which were primarily police sources, McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, but also the Ministry of Justice.
McAfee's lawyer is convinced that this is the result of a cruel system when he stated to Reuters the following "This is the result of a cruel system that had no reason to keep this man in jail for so long,".
Javier Villalba also noted that John McAfee still had opportunities to appeal his conviction but he did not last longer in prison.
John McAfee faced allegations of tax evasion, the practice of an illegal pump-and-dump scheme, and the promotion of ICO crypto products. As we've already informed you, the pump-and-dump scheme brought J. McAfee and his colleagues $ 2 million where they first bought a large number of altcoins and then began promoting them through their highly-watched twitter accounts.
Under the ICO scheme, J. McAfee and others concealed that the ICO issuers paid them for this promotion and compensated for it in the form of funds received from investors in the “initial coin offerings”.
In conclusion, we can only add that however much this lawsuit would end, J. McAfee has greatly contributed to the visibility of cryptocurrencies as well as Blockchain technology, even at a time when the mainstream still ignored us for which we can all thank him. John, rest in peace.