The extradition of John McAfee, the founder of a software antivirus company named McAfee Antivirus and one of the iconic figures in the crypto ecosystem to the United States has been affirmed by a Spanish High Court. Per a Reuters report, citing court documents released on Wednesday, the extradition can still be appealed by McAfee’s lawyers. Local lawmakers will also need to approve the extraditions before it is finally concluded.
McAfee’s troubles are quite many but primarily revolves around tax evasion as filed by the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The 76-year old computer programmer was indicted for failing to file his tax returns for three years including 2016, 2017, and 2018 per the Reuters report.
McAfee also has an outstanding brawl with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC brought civil charges against McAfee for raking in about $13 million from the promotion of false and misleading cryptocurrency projects.
The crypto projects involve Dogecoin (DOGE), and Verge (XVG) according to an earlier report by Coingape.
Per the report, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said McAfee and his cohorts “exploited a widely used social media platform and enthusiasm among investors in the emerging cryptocurrency market to make millions through lies and deception. 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”.
However, the extradition clause only permits the prosecution related to the tax evasions.
McAfee Embroiled in Numerous Crypto Controversy
John McAfee is one of the most vocal crypto proponents, albeit, highly controversial. The programmer was the pioneer of the Ghost coin project, a privacy-focused and decentralized cryptocurrency that was launched in 2017. McAfee and his team were accused of plagiarism by PIVX who claimed a section of its whitepaper. Per the event as was unfolded, McAfee allegedly went after PIVX, suing for reputational damage, rather than being apologetic.
McAfee has been in detention since October 2020 in Spain after his arrest at Barcelona airport.
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