Businessman John McAfee, founder of McAfee anti-virus software, has been charged in the United States with criminal charges and money laundering.
Mr McAfee and his bodyguard Jimmy Gale Watson Jr. are accused of promoting cryptocurrencies on Mr McAfee’s main Twitter account following rising prices.
The currencies was allegedly sold, bringing the pair $ 2m (£ 1.45m), prosecutors said.
The men have not commented on the charges against them.
Held Under Custody
Mr McAfee, 75, is currently being held in Spain in connection with various tax-related criminal offenses, which he denies. He is facing a possible extradition in the US.
Mr Watson was arrested in Texas on Thursday.
“Jimmy Watson is a decorated veteran and former Navy Seal. He fought for other people’s rights and liberties, and he is entitled to and looks forward to his day in court to exercise some of those very rights,” said his lawyer Arnold Spencer.
Accusations
The latest cases have been filed in federal court in Manhattan, New York. The two are accused of buying cryptocurrency assets before advertising them on Twitter, where Mr McAfee has more than one million followers.
They will be selling the coins as soon as Mr McAfee’s permits see rising prices, according to the US Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
They also allegedly made another $ 11m (£ 8m) by paying for the initial cryptocurrency to advertise their assets on Twitter, undisclosed payments to investors who bought them.
That amounted to having “exploited a widely used social media platform and enthusiasm among investors in the emerging cryptocurrency market to make millions through lies and deception,” federal prosecutor Audrey Strauss said.
In a separate tax evasion case – announced last October – Mr McAfee is accused of failing to file tax returns from 2014 to 2018. Prosecutors also said he used other people’s names to hide his belongings, including a boat and other belongings.
More About McAfee?
A controversial figure, he first appeared in the 1980s when his company released the first anti-virus software – McAfee VirusScan – and helped create a multibillion-dollar industry.
Even though the business has been sold to Intel, it still makes cyber security products.
The entrepreneur, who was born in the UK, also launched unsuccessful bids to become the Libertarian Party’s candidate for the US presidential elections in 2016 and 2020.
Mr McAfee has previously expressed his disdain for taxes, tweeting in 2019 that he had not filed tax returns for years because “taxation is illegal”.
In 2012, he made headlines after police in the Central American country of Belize investigated the death of one Mr McAfee’s neighbours and named him as a “person of interest”.
Mr McAfee left the country saying he feared for his own safety. Officials ultimately said he was not a suspect.
