- John McAfee has been arrested for inflating crypto prices and selling them at the top.
- However, Janice McAfee, the wife of John McAfee believes her husband did something similar to what Elon Musk has been doing.
John McAfee is a renowned businessman and computer programmer who rose to prominence after his company, McAfee Associates introduced McAfee VirusScan.
In the last few years, McAfee has found a lot of interest in cryptos. In 2017, he predicted that Bitcoin would hit $500,000 by the end of 2020.
Bitcoub's low of $1,800+ yesterday simply could not be maintained. In the long term Bitcoin moves above $500,000 within three years. Bets?
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) July 17, 2017
Not just that, he tweeted that Verge (XVG) would hit $0.15 from $0.01 which caused a significant rise in price before taking a nosedive.
However, authorities suspect that his predictions were meant to inflate the prices of assets to enrich himself. Some months ago, the 75-year-old was arrested in Spain together with his bodyguard Jimmy Watson Junior. He is facing criminal charges relating to tax fraud in Spain, which he has denied. Once it is sorted out, McAfee would be extradited to the US where he is accused of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.
Allegations from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) claim McAfee promoted digital assets to his 1 million Twitter followers. Files submitted to the Federal Court of Manhattan states that McAfee and Watson intentionally inflated prices of various assets and sold them off for $2 million. They also took about $11 million from some emerging crypto companies to promote them.
Prosecutor Audrey Strauss stated:
He exploited a widely used social media platform and enthusiasm among investors in the emerging cryptocurrency market to make millions through lies and deception.
John McAfee’s wife smells foul play
The wife of John McAfee, Janice McAfee has questioned the decision to subject her husband to legal consequences when Elon Musk does similar things daily. The Bitcoin price recently hit an all-time high after Musk added the asset to his Twitter bio. Also, Elon musk’s tweets about Dogecoin garnered interest to send the meme coin to an unprecedented price height.
She, therefore, believes her husband deserves freedom.
Elon Musk has moved the crypto markets with his tweets far greater than John McAfee could ever have. John faces the real possibility of dying in prison for allegedly engaging in similar activities.
Janice McAfee, however, clarified that her intention is not to see Musk in prison. According to her, John McAfee should be freed since Musk who does something similar is not in prison.
The McAfee antivirus creator had been on the run for almost two years before his arrest. After his arrest, he insisted he is not guilty of any of the crypto-related accusations. According to him, the market crash was beyond his knowledge as no one could have foreseen it.
[thrive_leads id="228374"]My team evaluated every promotion based on management, business plans, and potential. No one could have foreseen the altcoin market crash. We were paid in the same coins that crashed.
