John McAfee in a few words: guns, drugs, young pussies and crypto, that's what one might first think of when hearing the famous name that is still worn by an antivirus program created by mister McAfee himself many years ago. That's not all of course, as the tech veteran has had a quite tumultuous life, involving a murder accusation as well, and even his candidature for the US presedency... which he himself canceled in March this year.
Recently though McAfee was arrested in Spain, according to Bloomberg, on an airport while trying to get to Istanbul. Why did that happen, you might ask... Well, evasion in the US and "failing to file U.S. tax returns from 2014 to 2018 and hiding assets including real estate, a vehicle and a yacht in the name of others", according to the prosecutors investigating the case.
The crypto bull, as he is well known in the cryptosphere, might have played the game of pump and dump almost perfect, and other money making similar ones, but not perfect, making over $23 million only by promoting ICOs, while others have probably lost their life savings by investing in his shilled shitcoins. The list of "easy money" techniques that he used in the recent years and what's on his tail, as legal accusations, is quite bigger than his... d*#k.
"U.S. prosecutors claim McAfee earned millions of dollars through the promotion of cryptocurrencies, speaking engagements, consulting jobs and the sale of the rights to his life story for a documentary, but never filed tax returns. Instead, his income was paid into accounts held in the names of others, prosecutors claim. He faces as long as five years in prison if convicted of tax evasion and a year if found guilty of failing to file taxes."
Source
Scalping, pumping and dumping, endorsing, and paid promotions that he hid from the SEC and IRS are weighing hard on the guillotine that could cut his dick off... or in legal terms send him to jail. For the moment though he is detained in Spain, since October third, and is waiting for his extradition to US. Well, he's probably not eagerly waiting for it, but that's what's the next legal step after his arrest.
As a personal note, I have only appreciated this guy's honesty in expressing some of the harsh truths regarding the US Government and its spying techniques on its citizens, and his rage against corruption also. Never have invested in any shilled crypto of his although I saw quite clearly the pumping and dumping effect on them, and having 1 million followers on twitte, mostly probably crypto enthusiasts, this way of making money might have been quite easy to fulfill.
The silver lining of the story, and the situation with Bitconnect as well and its famous Carlos Matos, is that the crypto space and the participants to it, in their overwhelming majority, are quite immature, throwing money based on emotions and almost zero research on all sort of shitcoins, are easy to lure into pump and dump schemes and ponzis, getting poorer and poorer and playing with their life savings in this wild crypto game, while whales are making tons of money out of them.
Who's there to blame?
Both sides I would say... the nasty ones for lying, manipulating and screwing the masses, and the plebs for being dumb and easily manipulable... With high risks come high rewards, but sometimes the rewards don't really match the risks. The millions that McAfee made out of the dumb money's back might have offered him a good life for a few years, but he will probably spend a few years in jail for that... so is it worth the risk?
Thanks for attention,
Adrian