Who hasn't received the McAfee spam or malware warning on their laptop? That is how its founder, John McAfee, became famous, who took his own life in a cell in the Brians 2 prison in Barcelona at the end of June. Authorities found him while he was waiting for a Spanish justice to extradite him to the United States for tax evasion, for which he was arrested last October.

The arrest occurred when he landed at Barcelona airport on Oct. 3, 2020, about to take another plane to Turkey. The United States justice, which accused the businessman of evading millions of dollars in taxes with the sale of cryptocurrencies, had requested the collaboration of his European colleagues through Interpol to arrest him. It was a Spanish judge, José de la Mata, who ordered his imprisonment pending extradition.

The Prosecutor's Office was in favor of his deportation and the judge signed the order. His attorney, Javier Villalba, stated that his client had not been able to endure any more time in prison and blamed the "cruel system" that had kept McAfee in jail for so long — eight months exactly. On June 23, he was informed of the resolution of the case and in the afternoon he asked to spend some time alone. It was then that he hanged himself with his own shoelaces. Prison health workers tried to revive him without success.

The court found that McAfee was not being prosecuted for political reasons, something that the defendant alleged. Beyond a verbal statement, neither the antivirus company founder nor his lawyer presented evidence that this was the case. In recent years, McAfee had repeatedly stated that there was a plot against him.

McAfee was friends with the sexual predator, Jeffrey Epstein, who also committed suicide in his cell after being convicted of sex trafficking. Days after entering prison in Spain, the businessman tweeted: “I am satisfied here. I have friends. The food is good. Everything is fine. Know that if I hang up, Epstein style, it won't be my fault.”

But that is not all. In his pants pocket, the investigators found a note saying: "Instead of living it fully, I want to control my future, which does not exist."

His wife, Janice McAfee, doubts that it was a suicide note. She claims the letter is suspicious and she doubts it is an authentic note.

The antivirus founder spent some time in Tarragona, a historic city on the Catalan coast, south of Barcelona. After receiving the notice from Interpol, the Spanish National Police learned that McAfee had just returned on a private plane from Germany because the same businessman published a photo of his return on social media.

He sold his famous software to Intel in 2010 for over $7 billion. Two years later, while living in Belize, his neighbor was shot to the head and he fled before being questioned by the police. McAfee justified himself by saying that if he testified, the authorities would accuse him of the crime and that he could be murdered.

His penultimate arrest was in the Dominican Republic for possession of weapons and cash that the police found on his boat when docking on the island. His weapons were confiscated, but not his money because there was no lawsuit against him at the time.