Tag: mcafee
‘Running with the Devil’ offers an unpleasant glimpse at the ‘real’ John McAfee
The following article discusses the themes explored in the documentary, which includes substance abuse, mental health, gun violence and suicide.
We all know, or knew, that guy. Not in your social circle, but known nonetheless; someone’s older brother, cousin or drinking buddy. Whenever they had a captive audience they tell you tales of their exploits when they’re not kicking around suburban Lowestoft. In between puffs of cigarette smoke and the cheapest whiskey available, they’ll say they tried to join the army, but the recruitment people told them they were just too brilliant to waste in an infantry unit. Or they are an off-duty bodyguard who was lying low because The Mafia was looking for them (don’t ask why, shut up). Or that they had just signed a contract to replace The Undertaker at The Wrestling™ and would be jetting off to the US in the near future. The intensity of their testimony may, for a brief second, sucker you in, but you’ll soon realize that these people are more Walter Mitty than Walter White. Now imagine what that guy would look like if they’d been handed $100 million, and you’ll get a fairly decent pen portrait of John McAfee in his later years.
Running with the Devil: The wild world of John McAfee is a new documentary, arriving on Netflix on August 24th. It harnesses footage from the lost, unreleased Vice documentary On The Run with John McAfee, as well as film McAfee commissioned himself. It attempts to chronicle the life of the antivirus software pioneer from when he was named as a person of interest following the death of his neighbor Gegory Faull in Belize, through to his death in 2021. McAfee would spend his last decade on the run from pursuers, both real and imaginary, become embroiled in a cryptocurrency scam, try to run for US president (twice) and loudly declare that he refused to pay his taxes, which attracted the attention of the IRS. Arrested in Spain on charges of tax evasion, he died by suicide in his prison cell.
Devil is broken into three rough parts, each told from the perspective of the people in McAfee’s orbit at the time. Part one focuses on then-Vice editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro and legendary photojournalist Robert King, who accompanied McAfee on his escape to Guatemala. Part Two covers McAfee’s backstory and his relationship with ghostwriter Alex Cody Foster, with whom he sat for a series of interviews. Part Three shows how McAfee would eventually reconnect with Robert King, and asked him to become his personal biographer as he sailed on his yacht, mostly around South America. The footage is interspersed with commentary from McAfee’s partners, as well as Foster, Castoro and King.
Something that’s clear from both the footage and the contributors is that McAfee was obsessed with truth, but not always as you or I would understand it. There are several times when he fixates upon his legacy, his reputation, his image, his story and how he would be perceived. And yet the story was malleable, the facts unclear, and his behavior erratic – while on the run, he would buy a disguise and then proudly tell everyone in the store his name, and pose for photographs. McAfee’s behavior mirrors the cult leader who’s gone all-in on the grand deception, both in his use of charm, and his propensity for violence. More than once he’s pictured or discussed pointing a gun at friends and allies for what feels like nothing more than the pleasure of being a bully, or at least to remind everyone who had the power.
If you’re looking for some sort of truth, or grand coherent narrative to help you grasp who John McAfee was, however, you won’t get it here. That’s not a criticism of the documentary – McAfee loved to hint about who he was without ever saying it out loud, and always muddying his own water. There are scenes where he implies he is responsible for the death of both his abusive father and Faull, but never to anyone’s satisfaction. But it’s similarly clear that much of his bravado disappears when he’s faced with real consequences for his actions. Much is made, too, of his substance abuse, which seems to have supercharged his paranoia and delusional thinking.
Much of the footage shot by King is low-res, untreated first-person digital video, although there’s little shakycam here. It instantly dates the footage back to the start of the last decade, and sets the scene perfectly given the turn-of-the-millennium anxieties it creates. It works here, too, because it captures the unpleasant stale air in rooms that haven’t had their windows opened for too long. Rooms scattered with dirt and loose tobacco flakes, a half-empty whiskey bottle resting on its side next to some bath salts and a loaded handgun. It helps capture the smallness of the man in his decline, especially as he rages against not the dying of the light, but to the world’s seeming indifference. I imagine that anyone trying to dock a yacht in a foreign country with a cadre of automatic weapons and mercenaries on board would be greeted with a frosty reception from the local police. But, for McAfee, it’s all part of the grand conspiracy the world has contorted around him, and it’s sad. But you can’t feel too much sympathy for him given the trail of destruction left in his wake, and there’s little closure offered for his victims here.
If there’s one thing I wish the film did better, it’s helping the audience keep track of who, and where, everyone is at each point. I’m not always a fan of documentaries with hand-holding narrators, but this is the sort of film that really needs you to have Wikipedia to hand. That’s not to say it’s not worth watching, both if you knew of McAfee or if the original saga had passed you by. But if it lacks something, it’s enough of a sense of place and time to help you keep track of all of the things that McAfee was up to, and when.
It’s funny, several of my colleagues met with McAfee over the years – including this Engadget Show segment back in 2013. (Back then, McAfee said that he was parodying and leaning in to his insalubrious reputation while he made his viral videos. The documentary makes it clear that there was perhaps more truth than he was prepared to admit.) I’d even walked past McAfee several times at CES, often sitting alone in a sparsely-attended corner of one of the smaller show halls. I often wondered if I should go and speak to him, but there was something of the That Guy even when he was ostensibly on his best behavior. I could imagine him clamping his hand on my shoulder, fixing me with his dark eyes and spinning a fresh bewitching tale of mystery and intrigue, although as it turns out, the truth was probably wilder.
Why was John McAfee in prison?
TECH mogul John McAfee was found dead in his prison cell on June 23, 2021, at a prison in Barcelona, Spain.
McAfee’s death was shocking as Spain had just agreed to extradite him to the US for trial tied to white-collar crimes.
Why was John McAfee in prison?
John McAfee, 75, was in prison after being arrested on October 3, 2020, at El Prat airport in Spain.
Spanish officials arrested him on behalf of the US Department of Justice.
He was accused of failing to pay tax returns for four years, though he’d earned millions from consulting work, speaking engagements, cryptocurrencies, and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary.
The US DOJ alleged that he had evaded paying his taxes in the state of Tennessee by having his income paid into bank accounts and cryptocurrency accounts in the names of other people.
READ MORE ON TAX EVASION
He also allegedly concealed assets, including a yacht and real estate, which were also filed under other people’s names.
The tax-related criminal charges meant he could have faced up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.
The day after his arrest in October 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a separate complaint alleging that he had lured unassuming Twitter users into a cryptocurrency scheme.
He reportedly made more than $13 million in the scam, which he was later charged with, alongside his bodyguard.
READ MORE IN CRIME
In a hearing held via videolink, McAfee argued that the charges against him were politically motivated and said he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he was returned to the US.
Was John McAfee ever charged?
In March 2021, McAfee and his bodyguard Jimmy Gale Watson Jr were charged for a scheme to allegedly exploit McAfee’s mass Twitter following.
According to the US Department of Justice and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the pair allegedly publicly touted cryptocurrency offerings and digital tokens that they later sold once prices rose on the promotions.
McAfee was a wanted man in the US over tax-related charges[/caption]
Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss said that McAfee, Watson, and other members of the “cryptocurrency team” allegedly gained more than $13million from investors “they victimized with their fraudulent schemes.”
At the time, McAfee was being detained in Spain on the previously mentioned criminal charges filed by the Justice Department’s tax division.
Watson, an executive adviser of McAfee’s so-called cryptocurrency team, was arrested, the Justice Department confirmed.
Strauss said: “As alleged, McAfee and Watson exploited a widely used social media platform and enthusiasm among investors in the emerging cryptocurrency market to make millions through lies and deception.”
She added: “The defendants allegedly used McAfee’s Twitter account to publish messages to hundreds of thousands of his Twitter followers touting various cryptocurrencies through false and misleading statements to conceal their true, self-interested motives.”
McAfee was going to be extradited to the US to face a court[/caption]
What was John McAfee’s cause of death?
McAfee reportedly took his own life and hanged himself in prison in Barcelona, Spain.
According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, jail staff members tried resuscitating McAfee but were unsuccessful.
Reports of McAfee’s death came hours after Spain’s National Court approved his extradition to the US.
However, McAfee could have appealed the extradition.
McAfee’s death has raised questions on social media among his fanbase after the tech mogul tweeted back in 2019 that “If I suicide myself, I didn’t. I was whacked. Check my right arm.”
A tattoo on his arm says $whackd, insinuating that he was murdered.
Is there a documentary coming out about McAfee?
Netflix announced in July 2022 that a new documentary would be released about McAfee, expected to be out on August 24, 2022.
The documentary, titled Running With the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee, follows McAfee’s post-technology life, including his time on the run from authorities across the Caribbean and other countries.
All of the video footage of McAfee is authentic.
Film of the late software inventor came from filmmakers he hired to sail through the Caribbean and across international borders with him, hoping to one day tell his story to the world.
According to Deadline: “With exclusive access to hundreds of hours of previously unseen footage and in-depth accounts from the people who knew him best, the doc follows McAfee as he travels deep into the Belizean rainforest, across international borders, up river in the jungles of Guatemala and through the Bahamas on a boat loaded with guns, drugs and alcohol, trying to stay one step ahead of the alleged pursuers.”