John McAfee, the controversial tech tycoon who committed suicide inside a Spanish prison cell while awaiting extradition to the US last month, was broke when he died, according to an author who says he blew his $100 million fortune on “bizarre” mansions all over the world.
Mark Eglinton, a writer who collaborated with McAfee, said the eccentric antivirus software creator who hanged himself in prison apparently spent many millions on large mansions and compounds in places like Belize, Texas, Colorado, Hawaii and Tennessee, and was hammered by the real estate crisis in 2008.
Eglinton, who wrote “No Domain: The John McAfee Tapes” with McAfee, told DailyMail.com that he believes McAfee was indeed penniless – and the once mega-rich tech titan couldn’t even afford to pay Eglinton for his help with the tome.
“I don’t doubt that if he could have helped he would have,” Eglinton said of the modest advance fee he requested. “He said, ‘I can’t do it, my financial situation is worse than yours.”‘
Eglinton claims to have interviewed McAfee for “countless hours,” starting in August 2019 while McAfee was hiding from US officials and MacAfee detailed for Eglinton where the money went.
“We got a lot into where he spent his money over the years. … He had his money in very safe investments, but he built houses, absolutely bizarre properties. Some of them, he never slept a night in the property.”
These properties became albatrosses after the financial crisis, and he sold many at a loss, including his compound in Woodland Park, Colo. It was valued at more than $25 million but sold at auction for a mere $5.72 million in 2007 to a Chicago commodities trader, according to the Daily Mail.
McAfee reportedly told Eglinton: “The $100 million I got out of McAfee [Antivirus], that goes very quickly.”
Eglinton is now publishing the book in December as the sole author.
McAfee had been jailed at the Brians 2 prison since October while a Spanish tribunal considered whether to honor the extradition order. Federal prosecutors in Tennessee had issued a warrant for McAfee, alleging that he dodged more than $4 million in taxes.
Separately, a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint claimed that McAfee promoted ‘initial coin offerings’ of cryptocurrency without disclosing that he was paid more than $23 million to do so. Attempts to reach Janice McAfee were unsucessful.