Official campaign announcement
McAfee releases his official campaign announcement video.
It is near certain that the authors of The Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address — texts of agonizing beauty in the face of today’s harsh realities — could not have anticipated a world in which spy cameras are hidden in cactuses; the government surreptitiously parses our verbal communications; and the concept of privacy is fast approaching extinction. They could not have anticipated a world in which information is the prime commodity of exchange, at the expense of grace, compassion, solitude, and the remaining fragile components of the besieged human heart. What they did anticipate is that governments, no matter how powerful, will always hunger for more power, and that power inevitably corrupts.
Not dead
After rumors of his death hit the Internet McAfee tweets that is alive and well.
I felt fine when I went to bed last night. I had such great plans.. “RIP John McAfee" #allinclusivevacationdownsouth http://t.co/UEy8T1AUxo
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) September 9, 2013
Followed by:
For those wondering if im dead the answer is… "The Media is killing me, but somehow im still tweeting" #NotDeadYet pic.twitter.com/9qvNLBoFsg
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) September 9, 2013
Claims he carried out spying operation
McAfee blogs that he organized a massive spying scheme to infiltrate the digital lives of the rich and powerful in Belize as revenge for a police raid on his home last year. He says that he gifted 75 laptops with keystroke spying software pre-installed to “government employees, police officers, Cabinet Minister’s assistants, girlfriends of powerful men, boyfriends of powerful women.” He claims that he hired 29 operatives to install similar tracking software on computers that targets already owned, sometimes getting close to them with sex. He also supposedly had lackeys join the ranks of two national phone companies to tap phones and get lists of contacts from Belizeans he wanted to keep his eye on. McAfee also arranged to have recorders “hidden under a bed, behind a piece of artwork, inside a pillow, in an old shoe” of government ministers. He claims to have evidence of numerous sexual affairs, the ordering of a murder by the nation’s prime minister and, above all, a Hezbollah trafficking plot to smuggling Lebanese men into the U.S.
Belize is clearly a central player in a larger network whose goal is to infiltrate the U.S. with individuals having links to terrorist organizations.
Describes escape
McAfee says he planted a lookalike (“my double — a man I have known for over 30 years and who years ago legally changed his name to John McAfee”) and had him picked up by authorities in the northern Belize-Mexico border, while he and a group of friends and reporters loaded up a truck and headed in the opposite direction, to a southern town called Punta Gorda. With the news that he’d been arrested broadcasting on a local news station, McAfee figured that checkpoint security would relax. McAfee followed another friend who was driving one of his pickup trucks to avoid checkpoints on the highway. This was another decoy:
If they stopped the truck, I knew the checkpoint officers would be swarming all over it. Subsequent traffic would be likely to be waved through.
McAfee made sure that his dash happened on a rainy day.
In Belize, no checkpoint officers will ever stop a car in the rain.
He says he blew through all three highway checkpoints on that early December day without ever being stopped. From Punta Gorda, he and his 20-year-old girlfriend Samantha Vanegas and two Vice reporters sailed into Livingston, Guatemala. A few days later, he was arrested.
Illness a ‘ruse’
McAfee says he faked the illness in order to buy some time for a judge to hear his case and stay his deportation to Belize.
It was a deception but who did it hurt? I look pretty healthy, don’t I?
When asked whether he believes Belize officials were inept.
I was on the run with a 20-year-old girl for three and a half weeks inside their borders and everyone was looking for me, and they did not catch me. I escaped, was captured and they tried to send me back. Now I’m sitting in Miami. There had to be some ineptness.
McAfee also answers critics who called his adventures a publicity stunt:
What’s a better story, millionaire mad man on the run. You [the media] saved my ass. Because you paid attention to the story. As long as you are reporting, it is hard to whack somebody that the world is watching.
Wants to return to the U.S.
In a phone call to Reuters from the immigration facility where he is being held for illegally crossing the border to Guatemala with his 20-year-old girlfriend, McAfee says he wants to return to the U.S.
My goal is to get back to America as soon as possible. I wish I could just pack my bags and go to Miami. I don’t think I fully understood the political situation. I’m an embarrassment to the Guatemalan government and I’m jeopardizing their relationship with Belize.
Intends to stay in Guatemala
McAfee says he plans to settle down in Guatemala.
I have a passport. I am in no trouble with the U.S. I can return any time I like. I have been back to America many times since I have been in Belize. I have no interest of going this month or next but … I can come and go freely to America any time I want. I am not concerned because I have not been charged with a crime, so there is no basis for extradition. No one has blamed me for the murder. I have not been charged, I am not a suspect…They merely want to question me…I like Guatemala. I think the legal system in Guatemala is superior to the legal system in Belize.
Belizean police:
He’s really gone out of his way to make the country look bad, and we just believe he should, if he’s innocent as he’s saying he is, he should bring in his lawyer, and let’s get to the bottom of this and say what he needs to say and let’s move on.
Claims he faked photo info
McAfee claims he manipulated the Vice photo info.
I openly apologize to Vice Magazine for manipulating their recently published photo… I, for my own safety, manipulated the xif data on the image taken from my cellphone, and created a fake emergency so that the urgency of movement led, as I knew it would, to the hasty posting on their website. I felt that our tenuous situation demanded action, and that was the action that I chose.
Photo metadata shows McAfee in Guatemala
In the photo in their post announcing that they shadowing McAfee, Vice leaves exif data in the image that allows it to be pinpointed to a location in Guatemala.
Say he is ‘safe’
McAfee writes that he has not been arrested, saying that he will return to Belize, and that the Vice story will make everything clear.
I am currently safe and in the company of two intrepid journalist from Vice Magazine, and, of course, Sam. We are not in Belize, but not quite out of the woods yet.
Blog: McAfee arrested
A message on McAfee’s blog said that he has been arrested. The news is picked up in other media, but there is no confirmation.
We have received an unconfirmed report that John McAfee has been captured at the border of Belize and Mexico.
Police: McAfee not arrested
Belize national police confirm that the whereabouts of the multimillionaire software developer are still unknown. Additionally, authorities have issued no arrest warrant in the murder of McAfee’s neighbor.
Claims police planted cocaine in weapons donation
According to McAfee’s blog the reason for the raid is that one of the cases containing the weapons he donated to the police contained a bag of cocaine. McAfee denies that he takes or deals in drugs.
I would indeed have to be the stupidest man in the world to donate stuff to the police that contained cocaine.
Accuses former employeee of trying to kill him
McAfee publishes a transcript of an alleged conversation he claims to have obtained through secret recording devices kept in the grounds of his property between an ex-employee and a younger man who works for him. The transcript, taken from a recording posted on November 20, appears to implicate the older man in a plot to frame and murder McAfee, possibly in retribution for firing him. The employee is supposed to have said:
You and I we are going to plan how to make a bomb so that it explodes on that m—– f—–. I am going to wait and as he come out am going to shoot him. Because I was a BDF (Belizean Defence Force) I now have something that’s round. I could give it to you. you pull the pin like this. You walk pass the gate and when no one notices then you pull out the pin you turn it then a lot of them are going to get f—–. “
The current employee is then quoted as describing a wider conspiracy involving the local police, who would be called to the scene of the crime when the bomb was planted, potentially framing McAfee for possessing explosives.
With the white men [McAfee] we are going to plant the thing there then we are going to call the higher officials and tell them were the thing is planted. And then tell them about Noel as well, then there are both going to get f—–.”
Noel is a close friend of McAfee’s and a bar owner in Carmelita, a village in north Belize. The transcript is paired with a handwritten letter McAfee received containing a death threat.
Claims Stuffmonger drug story was hoax
McAfee describes a story on Bluelight drug forums: A user named Stuffmonger had claimed to have re-discovered a legendary drug that appeared a dozen years ago, was praised as the drug of drugs, and, after a few months, was then lost to history. The resulting discussion goes on for more than 1,000 pages, many devoted to those trying to recreate the technique that Stuffmonger described. As Stuffmonger stated he lives in Belize, speculation arose that McAfee was Stuffmonger and had the secret drug recipe. McAfee says that, in fact, he is Stuffmonger, but that he does not do drugs, and that the thread was an elaborate hoax.
I bet a close friend that I could create a thread in Bluelight and get 1,000 posts, not counting mine. I won the bet. I believe it is the longest in Bluelight history.
Disguises himself with tampon
McAfee describes steps he has taken to elude capture in Belize, including an elaborate disguise that includes shoving “a shaved down tampon deep into [his] right nostril.” The tampon, dyed brown at the end, leaves McAfee’s nose with “an awkward, lopsided, disgusting appearance,” he wrote. Aided by “ragged brown pants” and broken English “with a pronounced Spanish accent,” McAfee has apparently spent some time pretending to peddle “small wooden carvings” to tourists. He says he has adopted other personas as well: a native vendor, selling tamales and burritos (presumably to tourists); and an inebriated German tourist, “with a partially bandaged face and wearing speedo swimming trunks and a distasteful, oversized Hawaiian shirt and yelling loudly at anyone who would listen – ‘Leck mich umausch!’
‘I am certainly inside my compound’
McAfee says he is inside his compound.
I am, where I am most of the time. I am certainly inside my compound.
The Belize Police Department say they are investigating the claim, noting that McAfee has several buildings on his ocean front compound on Ambergris Caye, a stretch of island just off the Belizean shore dotted with resorts.
That has been passed on to the police in San Pedro. They [the police] are checking it out right now.
Responds to PM
In one of series of telephone interviews with Wired, McAfee responds to Belize Prime Minister Barrow’s questioning his sanity:.
I have no idea where it’s going. I do know that the prime minister and the prime minister’s statement yesterday could be equally reversed. You know, I think he himself is bonkers if he could throw away the constitution of the country and become dictator without the world catching on.
Asks about cell phone triangulation
McAfee, using his “stuffmonger” alias, posts to a private message board asking for information about how phone tracking works.
How long does it take for a phone company to triangulate a cell phone signal? With what accuracy? Is there any way to confuse/delay the system? If a cell phone is turned off, but the battery is installed, is there any way to locate the phone? Are there any brands of phones are more/less difficult to triangulate?
Answers range from useful to speculative.
Belize PM: McAfee ‘bonkers’
Belize’s Prime Minister Barrow urges McAfee to help the country’s police with the murder inquiry.
I don’t want to be unkind, but he seems to be extremely paranoid – I would go so far as to say bonkers. He ought to man up and respect our laws and go in and talk to the police.
McAfee has said he does not want to give himself up because he is afraid the authorities will torture or kill him. Barrow calls McAfee’s statements “nonsense,” noting he had “never met the man”:
The media attention he has attracted offers him] the best possible safeguard. It’s not as if the police have said he is a suspect and certainly there is no question at this point of charges pending. The fact that this is smeared across international headlines means the police would have to act extremely cautiously in the full glare of the public spotlight.