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- [00:01]
Francois Garcia
Francois Garcia is a Canadian filmmaker. He purchased the rights to make a documentary based on John McAfee's life in late 2012, about two months after McAfee's neighbor in Belize turned up dead. And over the next couple of years, he would try to line up meetings with people in the film industry.
- [00:24]
John McAfee
We have a studio involved. We're talking to several high profile directors as well. So I told John, I want to set up a meeting. You guys can chat.
- [00:36]
Francois Garcia
Francois says that during this period, John McAfee was taking bath salts, a very addictive synthetic drug known to cause euphoric highs and hallucinations, which was making it hard to set up meetings because McAfee said he didn't feel safe anywhere. He had fears of the cartel everywhere he went.
- [01:02]
John McAfee
I said, can we do this in la? No, no la. It's too dangerous for me. Too many Mexican cartels. Okay, John, all right. Can we do this in New York? No, I can't do New York because I can't carry weapons in New York. Therefore I can't protect myself from the cartels. Like, my God, man, just help me out here. Just. I'm not going to ask you every city in the United States, just give me a city.
- [01:27]
Francois Garcia
McAfee chooses Boston. He tells Francois that he's Irish and he feels like he'd be safe there surrounded by other Irish people. So they're at the Hilton in Boston, waiting in the lobby for the potential director to show up, and McAfee starts.
- [01:47]
John McAfee
To get jittery, and he says, sorry, I can't do this. I have to leave immediately. The hotel is surrounded by cartels all over the lobby here, looking at us. There was a Microsoft conference in the hotel. And I'm like, all I see is blue shirts with the Microsoft logo in it. And it's like, well, these are all cartel operatives. They're out to get me. I'm like, they're Microsoft employees. And it's like, no, they work for their cartel. They don't know it, but they do.
- [02:26]
Francois Garcia
McAfee starts to spiral in front of Francois. He says he wants a limo with tinted windows to take him to the airport. Francois notices that the director has just walked into the lobby. He wants to salvage the meeting. He offers to drive McAfee to the airport in his own car so that the director can sit in the back with McAfee and discuss the movie. McAfee agrees. They head up to his room to pack, and Francois sees McAfee's partner, Janice is there.
- [03:00]
John McAfee
Then, I haven't seen any Drugs yet, but it's obvious. It's like a state of paranoia. There's guns everywhere. Loaded guns. He's fidgety. Gun falls out of his pocket.
- [03:12]
Francois Garcia
Janice acknowledges there were guns, but denies that either of them were high. In any event, Francois, his cameraman, McAfee, Janice, and the director all pile into the car.
- [03:27]
John McAfee
So off we drive to the airport. All of this is on video, by the way, on a car chase with invisible cars. And it's like, okay, they're behind us. Turn left, and there's nobody behind us. They're there. Drive faster. I can't drive faster. I mean, he's holding a gun and waving the gun. Can you just point your gun down? Like, because I'm driving. I don't want to hold it in the back of my head.
- [03:52]
Francois Garcia
Now, keep in mind, the director is in the car the whole time, seeing everything. When they arrive at the airport, McAfee and Janice leave their guns in Francois back seat, and they check in for a flight to the UK. As Francois is driving the director back, McAfee calls him with one more favor to ask. McAfee says he left his own car at the hotel and he wants Francois to give the keys to one of his security guards who'd drive it to McAfee's house in Tennessee. Francois finds the car in the parking garage.
- [04:35]
John McAfee
As soon as I open the car, I mean, I see the arsenal. I'm not using the word lightly. An arsenal of weapons, all sizes, all over the vehicle. And bags. Ziploc bags, probably 2 ounces each, full of this substance.
- [04:52]
Francois Garcia
Inside those Ziploc bags, according to Francois, was a drug similar to bath salts, but even stronger. Later, Francois goes out for dinner and drinks with the film director. His reaction to the whole thing, according to Francois, was, what the hell just happened? But as it turns out, their meeting was a success. The deal goes through. You're listening to Foundering. I'm your host, Jamie Tarabay. It's the beginning of the end. When John McAfee ran for and lost the Libertarian Party presidential nomination, it propelled him to the national stage once again. He was on TV regularly discussing politics, civil liberties, and cybersecurity. He'd largely shrugged off the accusations that he'd murdered his neighbor in Belize. And he was able to use his fame to court a new sort of wealth, cryptocurrency. In this chapter of McAfee's life, he becomes a major player in the crypto world. With a single tweet, he could send the price of a new digital currency soaring. He was living large again and evading taxes. But behind the scenes, McAfee was deteriorating. His world was composed of guns, drugs, delusions that ruled his Life. For years, McAfee had put push the notion that he was wanted by one government or another. This time, because of his dealings in crypto and those unpaid taxes, authorities in the United States really are after him and they're closing in. We'll tell you more after the break. Stories of John McAfee doing synthetic drugs have floated around for years. As early as 2010, John McAfee was posting on a message board called Blue Light about his experiments with bath salts. The journalist Jeff Weiss quotes McAfee as writing, I think it's the finest drug ever conceived. I had visual and auditory hallucinations and the worst paranoia of my life. Over the years, McAfee posted dozens of times on this site, which is now defunct. Another journalist, Joshua Davis, asked McAfee about these posts and he insisted it was just a big prank. But then McAfee went on to describe elaborate hallucinations to the reporter. For what it's worth, Janice, McAfee describes him more as a drinker. Whatever he was on, it made him super paranoid. I first spoke to Janice in June of 2022, about a year after John McAfee's death. I specifically wanted to ask her about McAfee's repeated insistence that the cartel was out to get him. It's a story that Janice has corroborated, mostly in tabloids like the Daily Mail and the sun, but also in outlets like Newsweek. In fact, she said over the years that it was related to her past as a sex worker.
- [08:32]
Janice McAfee
I didn't know that my pimp had been approached by someone who was claiming to be a representative of the cartel. The Sinaloa cartel.
- [08:44]
Francois Garcia
John McAfee spent years saying that the Sinaloa Cartel was after him. It's an international crime ring mostly known for drug trafficking. It was led by El Chapo for decades. There is no evidence of any truth to McAfee's claims about the cartel. And the only other person who seemed to believe it was Janice.
- [09:09]
Janice McAfee
They knew that we were together and they wanted to have me be sort of their inside man, you know, giving them information.
- [09:19]
Francois Garcia
And Janice says that her pimp was in honoured.
- [09:23]
Janice McAfee
His whole thing was like, oh, my gosh, we're gonna get so much money. And my thing was, okay, I'm gonna get away from you. Like, this was my plan, you know, I. I'm gonna get. I'm gonna use this situation to get away from you.
- [09:38]
Francois Garcia
While we weren't able to verify Janice's story, it's been widely documented that women leaving this type of sex work often have a difficult time shaking off their traffickers. Maybe Janice and McAfee's fears became sandwiched together. She was convinced the pimp was following her every move with McAfee, and he was convinced the cartel was out to get him. Here is Francois.
- [10:06]
John McAfee
He ran with that story for so long that I think, like any good lie, he just. At some point, he did start believing himself. It was interesting, because I do believe that when he was under the influence of bath salts, he did believe the paranoia, the invisible men chasing him. I mean, I've seen him starting shooting at the walls from inside his house.
- [10:32]
Francois Garcia
From 2013 through 2017, Francois was actively filming with McAfee, often at his home in Lexington, Tennessee.
- [10:41]
John McAfee
I would go to the back door, knock at the door, and immediately move myself out of the frame of the door against a brick wall, because the chances that he would start shooting from inside the house, blazing bullets out of his living room or bedroom.
- [10:59]
Francois Garcia
Janice confirms the story and the situation.
- [11:03]
Janice McAfee
With the shooting in the house. You know, if he heard something where it sounded like someone was in, are at it, you know, that's what he would do. You know, fire, you know, kind of a warning shot.
- [11:14]
Francois Garcia
But she claims McAfee had reasons to be alarmed. The pimp was still around, she says, and still a threat. And Janice blames herself for bringing this source of danger into McAfee's life.
- [11:30]
Janice McAfee
I willingly felt really guilty, and I felt a lot like the things that were happening around him and why he felt so unsafe was because of me, was my fault.
- [11:41]
Francois Garcia
Is that why you guys divorced?
- [11:44]
Janice McAfee
No, no, no. It just. We just. I didn't know that there was really a why we divorced. We just. We just did.
- [11:56]
Francois Garcia
Janice and McAfee get divorced in 2019, but they would remain partners for the rest of his life.
- [12:03]
Janice McAfee
There was always a need for me to try to reassure him, you know, that I wasn't trying to do him harm. I didn't want to do him harm. So whatever I needed to do to let him know that I was willing to do that.
- [12:18]
Francois Garcia
Janice didn't go into too many details about the divorce, but we know that McAfee was volatile, that he had a tendency to push people away. Janis managed to hang on to his trust. And my interpretation is that the divorce was Janice's way of showing her commitment that she would still be there without a claim to his money. For Francois, though, the trust that existed between him and McAfee that began to wither.
- [12:49]
John McAfee
Well, he. I think that he started realizing that the projects. It's not just a biography that's gonna glorify him and repeat his side of the story or whatever he says at face value.
- [13:07]
Francois Garcia
Eventually, the day that probably felt inevitable came. McAfee turned on Francois, accusing me being.
- [13:16]
John McAfee
Connected to the cartel. That's. That was part of his M.O. i mean, he has. He had accused plenty of people in the past that they. Either they had no more use for him or they were getting too close for him. That's how he would get rid of people. You know why you're not talking to this friend of yours anymore? Oh, he's. My sources just confirmed that he was working with the cartels against me. Oh, how do you know that? Oh, well, he just bought a new car.
- [13:50]
Francois Garcia
These accusations marked the end of their relationship. When we spoke to Francois, his documentary on McAfee had been in the works for about a decade. Remember, he first started calling news agencies on McAfee's behalf in 2012, after Greg falls Murder in Belize. He still plans to release his project. Francois says he stopped communicating with McAfee by late 2017. He then watched as McAfee had a sort of career revival by tweeting about cryptocurrency.
- [14:29]
John McAfee
It just went on fire. His following started growing and the massive crypto community there. So just embrace John.
- [14:39]
Francois Garcia
Francois felt like he was seeing a whole new community of people taken in by McAfee's star power. In spite of his addictions and delusions, McAfee would carve out a next chapter as a cryptocurrency prophet. That's next. Cryptocurrency became McAfee's major project during the last years of his life.
- [15:08]
John McAfee
Our responsibility, I don't think, is to build the ultimate currency, but to understand the power. That cryptocurrency, not developed by governments and institutions, but by people, offers us, for the first time in human history, a chance for absolute financial freedom. Where your wallet is your bank.
- [15:34]
Francois Garcia
That's McAfee speaking at a crypto conference in Barcelona in 2019. Cryptocurrencies allow people to anonymously exchange money directly with each other. McAfee saw huge potential in this. He saw in it a promise of privacy, a world without banks or the irs.
- [15:57]
John McAfee
No one will know what you do with your money. Neither should they. It's your fucking money. You worked for it.
- [16:04]
Francois Garcia
That attitude that the government has no business meddling with his money would eventually catch up with him. He Went all in on crypto in 2017, starting a new money making scheme. A few people who were part of his failed presidential campaign went to work for him, and they called themselves Team McAfee. They operated out of his house in Tennessee. Jimmy Watson, a former Navy SEAL, joined McAfee's security team. He still remembers his first day on the job.
- [16:39]
Jimmy Watson
John McAfee steps out of this dark corner in the back of the house. You know, I'm looking across the kitchen and across this living room, and it's all dark and there's bullet holes in the wall, like, around his door.
- [16:56]
Francois Garcia
Jimmy could see that the compound was dedicated to crypto.
- [17:00]
Jimmy Watson
Everybody in the house, everyone, even the maid, I think, has a computer screen up, a laptop, and they're trading on this crazy, which looks like the stock market to me. I had heard of bitcoin, just very, very slightly, but I remember John McAfee kind of laughing and. And screaming out loud, like how much money he made that day.
- [17:21]
Francois Garcia
Jimmy hadn't spent a lot of time online. He spent much of his adult life in the Navy. And then he went on to work for Blackwater, the security contractor that massacred Iraqi civilians in 2007. He said he didn't know anything about digital currency and that McAfee took him under his wing.
- [17:42]
Jimmy Watson
He taught me basically like no other teacher had ever talked to me before. And he taught it to me in a way that I could understand. Cryptocurrency.
- [17:50]
Francois Garcia
He and McAfee developed a close relationship.
- [17:53]
Jimmy Watson
We look for father figures in our life. Generally, psychologically, we do. And when we find someone in our life that we look up, we look up to as a mentor or a father figure, we kind of cling onto that individual, and then we put them on a pedestal. And that's pretty much what happened with me and John McAfee.
- [18:14]
Francois Garcia
With less than a year in the job, and to his complete surprise, Jimmy says McAfee gave him a new rank and title.
- [18:22]
Jimmy Watson
He goes, I promoted you to CEO two weeks ago on Twitter. And you didn't even see it. You did. And he was like, yeah, but I'm not gonna pay you extra. So that's the kind of relationship we had.
- [18:34]
Francois Garcia
Jimmy works all day and all night. He doesn't stop. And neither does McAfee.
- [18:40]
Jimmy Watson
We would be up all night, sometimes all night, you know, to four or five, six in the morning, get maybe two hours of sleep and wake up. A normal day with him would be to go to the liquor store, pick up a case of scotch, like a case, sit at his house. He'd blare the TV on loud, and he'd do all his crypto business and stuff from his phone and then maybe go to Walmart. He lived a pretty mundane life when we weren't traveling because he was very paranoid. He didn't. He didn't want to leave the house.
- [19:15]
Francois Garcia
Despite the drinking, the paranoia, there was a method to the madness. Team McAfee was always moving forward, looking into emerging cryptocurrencies. My colleague Hannah Miller covers crypto.
- [19:29]
Hannah Miller
So 2017 was a pivotal time in crypto. Tons of new coins coming out all the time. It would be impossible for anyone to keep track of these projects, and McAfee was a bit of a guide to them.
- [19:43]
Francois Garcia
Jimmy's job was to read up on all the new cryptocurrencies and pass on to McAfee the ones that Jimmy thought were unique or interesting. Most of them were getting ready to sell their new tokens to the public for the first time. If McAfee liked one, he or his team would often reach out to the project and offer to promote it on his Twitter account. But he usually had an ulterior motive.
- [20:10]
Hannah Miller
He might buy up that coin himself. So after he promotes it, makes it his coin of the day, and the price goes up, his own stake would rise, and then he could sell that cryptocurrency and make a profit. He would also sometimes charge these projects to get promoted by him. And so he was really building a business out of, you know, this idea of becoming a crypto influencer back when that was a really new phenomenon.
- [20:43]
Francois Garcia
Now, it's not illegal to do a sponsorship or a promotional deal with crypto companies, but what could be considered illegal is to not disclose that you're being paid to promote that cryptocurrency or security. In addition to working with cryptocurrency companies, McAfee also took paid speaking gigs at conferences. He was able to draw so much attention to cryptocurrency because he was such an evangelist for the movement.
- [21:13]
Hannah Miller
His presence on Twitter was very high profile, very colorful. In 2017, he tweeted that the price of a bitcoin would jump to $500,000 within three years, adding, if not, I will eat my own dick on national television.
- [21:32]
Francois Garcia
For the record, bitcoin never got anywhere close to that amount, and McAfee didn't make good on his promise. The main business of Team McAfee was his coin of the day. In 2017, McAfee chose to promote a project called Redcoin, a crypto token designed to be used as a tip or gratuity on social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter. This is Redcoin's developer, who goes by the pseudonym Tech Adept, or TA for short.
- [22:08]
Tech Adept
McAfee certainly was on the radar from being a bit of a pioneer in the antivirus space. He's a computer genius. He's this, you know, but it didn't really touch our world at all up until the point I checked the date, it was December 24th, Christmas Eve, that he actually tweeted out, you know, red Coin, the social coin, go for it. And people did.
- [22:33]
Francois Garcia
Ta says he didn't pay McAfee to promote red coin. He believes McAfee found redcoin on his own. Redcoin isn't a company. It's a group of volunteers who dedicate their spare time to it. In his tweet, McAfee called Redcoin a sleeper and the most widely used social network coin in the world.
- [22:55]
Tech Adept
It was Christmas Eve and, you know, the eggnog must have been flowing and it was a great time, but it ended very quickly.
- [23:06]
Francois Garcia
Redcoin hit an all time high in January 2018. The crypto data tracker CoinGecko reported that the price surged 1,600% from the month before. Redcoin has never broken the record price it reached after McAfee's tweet. Ten months later, members of Team McAfee reached out to TA over LinkedIn and email and wanted to strike a deal with Redcoin for another promotion from McAfee. It was clear they had no memory of the prior promotion, which was a major red flag for ta.
- [23:47]
Tech Adept
They mentioned a million dollar payment just to be involved and clearly some sort of significant equity in the company, which doesn't really exist as such. So I don't even know on their team how much communication was going on, but clearly they were still looking for customers, partners, people to take money from that they could then promote and make a bunch of money. And they did. They were. They were using the crypto community as an atmosphere.
- [24:22]
Francois Garcia
It was November 2018 when Team McAfee approached Redcoin for that paid promotion. Around this time, McAfee and his CEO Jimmy had a falling out.
- [24:35]
Jimmy Watson
I had a sort of a mental breakdown, but it was like a spiritual awakening and it was like a veil was lifted off of my eyes, as crazy as that sounds. And it's like I could see the evil around me and that I just bounced and at the cost of pretty much everything to me, like I felt utterly used by him.
- [25:00]
Francois Garcia
Jimmy says he hadn't talked to McAfee since late 2018 or early 2019. But he remembered how he felt during that conversation.
- [25:11]
Jimmy Watson
I think he just said, you've played the fool, Jimmy. My son, basically, like, I won. And that was really hard for me because I had. I felt like he was like a dad to me, a father. And that's what you get for. For thinking those kind of things in life, you know, And. And it was a huge lesson for me to learn.
- [25:32]
Francois Garcia
But at this moment, in the fall of 2018, McAfee has bigger problems than Jimmy or the Redcoin deal. McAfee gets word that the federal government is planning to press charges against him. Janice tells our contributing reporter Matthew Bremner that she and McAfee make plans to leave the country.
- [25:55]
Janice McAfee
John had gotten. He'd gotten a letter from one of his attorneys, and they had said that they had been called to give testimony to a grand jury. He'd then gotten word that he, himself, myself, and four other people were named in this grand jury indictment.
- [26:15]
Francois Garcia
This.
- [26:15]
Janice McAfee
It was supposed to. We weren't supposed to know about it, but obviously John, you know, has his ways to get information. And so he found out about that in November until we ended up leaving in January of the next year, January 2019.
- [26:29]
Jeff Albert
And did you go directly to Spain?
- [26:32]
Janice McAfee
No, no, no. We went to the Bahamas. We drove from Hatteras Island. So we drove from there down to Miami, and then from Miami, we took our boat, the Freedom Boat.
- [26:46]
Francois Garcia
We were unable to confirm this chain of events with McAfee's attorney. However, we spoke to a legal expert who told us that it's unusual for attorneys to give grand jury testimony during a federal investigation. That said, it's very common for people under investigation for white collar crimes to know they're being investigated. What McAfee did that was uncommon was flee.
- [27:14]
John McAfee
Today, January 22nd, the IRS has convened a grand jury in the state of Tennessee to charge myself, my wife, Mrs. McAfee, four of my campaign work with unspecified IRS crimes of a felonious nature. They want to silence me. I will not allow that. I am running my campaign in exile on this boat.
- [27:46]
Francois Garcia
If you didn't catch that. McAfee attempted to run for president again as the Libertarian candidate in the 2020 election. While he was at sea, he was still very active online and closely followed by the crypto community. He insisted he would continue to campaign with his partner, Janice by his side even as he was being investigated.
- [28:11]
John McAfee
I will not allow them to imprison me and shut my voice down while.
- [28:16]
Francois Garcia
He was on the lam. He made this recording that was played to an audience on a crypto themed cruise.
- [28:23]
John McAfee
Hello, everyone, I'm John McAfee. I'm very sorry I cannot be with you enjoying this wonderful cruise that you're on. The reason I'm not with you is had I attempted to go, I would have been picked up by Interpol and carted off back to America to face charges for tax evasion. It is true. I have not paid taxes in eight years. I have not filed taxes in eight years. I will not file taxes again.
- [28:58]
Francois Garcia
Jeff Albert is a partner at the law firm Prior Cashman and a former federal prosecutor with the Southern District of New York. Jeff specializes in white collar crime. He said that McAfee's actions fit the profile of a type of crime known as a pump and dump scheme involving securities.
- [29:18]
Jeff Albert
You take a security that is selling at a fairly low price, you buy a bunch of it at that low price, then you make a bunch of extravagant claims publicly about the security and how it's likely to go up in value. The value then goes up, and then you sell all of those securities that you bought and make a tidy little profit.
- [29:36]
Francois Garcia
Jeff says the McAfee name did some heavy lifting in this scheme.
- [29:41]
Jeff Albert
John McAfee was well known as somebody who had created antivirus software, presumably was very smart, and people viewed him as somebody that they could rely on to go in and look at a computer science related product and assess whether or not it was really valuable.
- [29:58]
Francois Garcia
Right now we're in a legal gray area. Governments have been trying to figure out how to regulate cryptocurrency. Many of them wanted to treat it more like a stock. That way they could use existing rules to discourage people from manipulating the market or trying to gain unfair advantages to make money. John McAfee became one of their first high profile targets. On October 5, 2020, the SEC charged McAfee and Jimmy Watson with fraudulently promoting cryptocurrencies to McAfee's Twitter followers without disclosing they were being paid to do so. Federal prosecutors at the Justice Department came out with similar charges in 2021. In total, McAfee and Jimmy were accused of committing a $13 million fraud. After he left McAfee, Jimmy lived abroad. He kept busy doing contract work. He never crossed paths with his former boss again. Jimmy declined to go into detail about why he moved overseas. And he didn't have a good explanation for why he did what he did next, which is with a federal indictment hanging over his head, he goes back to the US in March 2021, he travels to Texas to see family and renew his passport.
- [31:32]
Jimmy Watson
I was with my mom outside at a coffee shop, and little did I know the FBI had been watching my house and following me. These two SUVs just pulled up really fast, guns in my face, fingers on trigger, you know. You know, yelling at you, get on the ground. My only concern was my mom. I was like, mom, mom, back up. This is bad. In. And that was it. They arrested me, you know.
- [31:59]
Francois Garcia
Jimmy spent five days in the federal penitentiary before being released under a $10 million bail and house arrest. He pleaded not guilty. Just over a year later, a federal judge ordered Jimmy to pay almost $400,000 in fines and banned him from buying and selling any digital asset security. It was near the end of the road from McAfee as well. He'd fled the United States in haste in 2019 after years of saying he was being chased. He really was wanted by the US Government on several charges. And he would spend the next few years splitting from one foreign city to another, attempting to disguise his whereabouts. And Jimmy, who'd spent so much time traveling with McAfee before their split, he had a strong sense of what McAfee was up to.
- [33:00]
Jimmy Watson
We did go to Spain. He hung out with Russians there. Very, very powerful, successful Russians. When I heard that he was arrested in Spain, I knew that he was. He had been with them. And these are very powerful men. I don't want to get too far into it just to protect myself.
- [33:20]
Francois Garcia
McAfee's Last Stand. That's next time on Foundering, the John McAfee story. Foundering is hosted by me, Jamie Tarabay. Sean Wen is our executive producer. Hannah Miller and Matthew Bramner contributed reporting to this episode. Special thanks to Yang Yang and Aileena Peng for help with production. Molly Nugent is our associate producer. Sharif Youssef is our audio engineer and editorial assistant. Mark Million, Ann Vandermee, Molly Schutz and Andy Martin are our story editors. Be sure to subscribe, and if you like our show, leave a review. Most importantly, tell your friends. See you next time.