Sex, drugs, guns, murder and internet billionaire John McAfee on the run
THE bizarre story of internet billionaire John McAfee's life of sex with teenagers, drugs and guns took a twist when he was charged with murder. The fugitive claims he's innocent.
SEX with teenage girls, a drug laboratory and a private army packing an arsenal of weapons were all stories about John McAfee's life the internet multi-billionaire could handle.
But when police accused him of the assassination-style murder of his neighbour, McAfee fled his luxury compound in Belize and became a fugitive.
Now living in exile with his young Belizean girlfriend and refusing to return to face justice, the eccentric tech genius has opened up about his bizarre life to an Australian journalist.
SBS reporter David O'Shea tracked him down in a rented apartment in Portland, Oregon, where the 68-year-old inventor of McAfee anti-virus software says he is working on a new counterspy device to block National Security Agency-style surveillance of personal communications.
O'Shea's investigation of McAfee's life and the unsolved murder case goes to air this Tuesday, November 5, on SBS One's Dateline at 9.30pm.
"[McAfee] says it's too dangerous to go back to Belize. They would kill him," O'Shea told news.com.au. "He's a very powerful, well-connected guy. He's egotistical. He's a hedonist and does what he pleases.
"I don't think John McAfee is crazy, although he's definitely a control freak."
McAfee's life was already eventful before he relocated in 2010 from the US to the Caribbean coast to set up an outpost empire in the jungle.
From a troubled background with an alcoholic father, McAfee was a mathematics whiz and cannabis smoker who graduated to taking LSD and working in computer-related jobs.
He ended up as a director of engineering at a Californian storage systems company, where he snorted massive amounts of cocaine and drank whisky on the job.
In 1983, he sought therapy and says he has not taken drugs since.
About 25 years ago, he formed McAfee Associates to create the anti-virus software that made his fortune.
He acquired hundreds of cars, private aeroplanes and houses in Hawaii, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.
He also acquired a taste for young girls, although he insists they were always above the age of consent.
By 2010, he had sold up his assets in the US. The Intel company bought McAfee Associates for about $8 billion.
McAfee moved into a house on a hectare of cleared jungle in mainland Belize, where the taxes were lower and where young women may have consensual sex by the age of 16 years.
What happened next depends on who you believe - McAfee, or the Belize police.
The police say McAfee had set up a laboratory on his compound manufacturing the drug Methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MPDV or bath salts, and was protecting the enterprise with a gun-toting private army.
O'Shea says McAfee posted blogs "on a blue light internet drug forum where he invented this whole story about the rediscovery of a lost drug ... which lets you have sex for 15 hours straight".
Calling himself "Mr Stuffmunger", in one post, McAfee says: "I'm a huge fan of MPDV. I think it's the finest drug ever conceived, not just for the indescribable hypersexuality, but also for the smooth euphoria and mild comedown".
McAfee told O'Shea he "created this whole elaborate hoax because he was bored".
In April last year, the Belizean gang suppression unit raided McAfee's compound and arrested him for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon.
Police released him without charge.
On November 11, McAfee's neighbour, 52-year-old American, Gregory Faull, was found dead with a gunshot wound to the back of his head and possible Taser marks.
Investigating officers took McAfee in for questioning.
Expressing fears "police would kill" him, McAfee fled Belize for Guatemala, where authorities denied him political asylum.
In a later blog post, McAfee claimed he had used a bevy of beautiful women to spy on high-level government officials in Belize.
In what may have been a hoax, he said he used keystroke monitoring software to obtain the sensitive information.
He claimed he installed the software on 75 computers which he then gave to government officials, police and other powerful people in Belize.
He says he then trained 23 women and six men to be his "operatives".
Belize's Prime Minister Dean Barrow has called McAfee "extremely paranoid, even bonkers".
Last December he was deported from Guatemala to the US, arriving in Miami and then travelling to Oregon, where he now lives.
In a satirical video, How to Uninstall Anti-Virus Software, released in June, McAfee poses amid adoring women and packets labelled "bath salts" while saying he has no idea how to uninstall his famous software.
Apart from travelling to Oregon to interview McAfee, O'Shea made his own investigation into the Belize murder of Gregory Faull.
"I spoke with locals and [some of] the seven girlfriends he had," O'Shea said. "Two girlfriends tried to kill him.
"One of the girls tried to shoot him in the head ... for reasons of jealousy, or she might have cut a deal with one of the gangs."
Police shot McAfee's dog and may have been "cutting a deal with [local] drug dealers" at the time of McAfee's arrest.
McAfee told O'Shea he had refused to pay police a $2 million bribe.
When he fled Belize, "he believed he was going to be framed".
"He's extremely intelligent, great fun to hang around ... paranoid. But that's what led to [his inventing the] anti-virus software."
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