Famed antivirus programmer John McAfee charged with cryptocurrency pump and dump scheme
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John McAfee, who founded the well-known McAfee antivirus computer software, ran a $2 million pump and dump scheme of cryptocurrency through his Twitter account, prosecutors charged Friday.
The eccentric techie is charged, along with his bodyguard Jimmy Gale Watson Jr., with promoting the cryptocurrency to his one million Twitter followers in 2017 and 2018. Once prices rose thanks to the tweets, McAfee and Watson sold their stake, prosecutors in Manhattan Federal Court charged. They ran a separate, similar scheme promoting digital tokens without revealing they were being paid to tout the currency on Twitter, prosecutors said.
“McAfee and Watson 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,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said.
McAfee, 75, is being held in Spain on separate tax charges filed by the Justice Department. The globe-trotting Silicon Valley legend famously fled Belize in 2012 after authorities named him as a person of interest in a murder investigation.