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Businessman John McAfee, creator of the anti-virus software McAfee, has been accused in the United States of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.
McAfee and his bodyguard Jimmy Gail Watson Jr. have been accused of promoting cryptocurrencies on McAfee’s popular Twitter account to inflate prices by boosting consumer demand and making profits from exchange rate differences. At this stage, McAfee and Watson Jr. at this stage have refused to comment on the situation to the BBC.
Mr McAfee, 75, is currently being held in Spain on separate criminal charges related to taxes he denies. He is also facing possible extradition and responsibility in the United States.
Mr Watson was arrested in Texas on Thursday.
“Jimmy Watson was awarded as a veteran and former member of the US Naval Communications Union. “He is fighting for the rights and freedoms of others and he is right and he is looking forward to his day in court, in which he will be able to exercise the rights he has defended for many people,” said his lawyer, Arnold Spencer.
The strange life of John McAfee
The latest charges were filed in federal court in Manhattan, New York. The two were accused of buying cryptocurrencies and other financial instruments on the stock exchange before they began promoting them on Twitter, where Mr McAfee has more than a million followers. A number of McAfee supporters and cryptocurrencies have been quick to defend it in various online communities, as they do not believe it could be a crime, although only a few have expressed such an opinion.
According to allegations by the US Department of Justice and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the two partners intended to sell the assets as soon as McAfee approved the appropriate market price at which to start selling.
At this stage, McAfee and Watson Jr. are said to have made another $ 11 million in payments from cryptocurrency startups to promote their desired assets on Twitter, payments that have not been disclosed to investors who run the funded startups in question.
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