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.
Returns to U.S.
After weeks on the run and days in immigration detention, McAfee arrives in Miami, where he is staying at the Beacon Hotel. McAfee tells CNN he and his girlfriend were separated when immigration authorities expelled him from Guatemala.
I’m happy to be going home. I’ve been running through jungles and rivers and oceans and I think I need to rest for a while. And I’ve been in jail for seven days. I’m just going to hang in Miami for a while. I like Miami. There is a great sushi place there and I really like sushi.
Expelled from Guatemala
McAfee is escorted by immigration officials and police trucks to the Guatemala City airport, where he is put on a commercial flight bound for Miami. McAfee is escorted to the airport, accompanied by many journalists and two police trucks. He sits in coach class on the flight.
It was the most gracious expulsion I’ve ever experienced. Compared to my past two wives that expelled me this isn’t a terrible trip.
Immigration service spokesman:
McAfee entered the country illegally. Guatemala is expelling him. Since his country of origin is the United States, Guatemala is expelling him to the United States.
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.
Denied asylum, hospitalized
McAfee says he suffered chest pains overnight and is hospitalized briefly after being denied political asylum in Guatemala. McAfee says he does not believe that he suffered a heart attack, and a doctor agrees that his heart rhythm and blood pressure are normal and that he appears to be suffering from high stress. Shortly after the decision to deny him asylum is announced, McAfee issues a plea on his blog for the public to petition Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina to let him stay.
Please email the President of Guatemala and beg him to allow the court system to proceed, to determine my status in Guatemala, and please support the political asylum that I am asking for.
McAfee’s legal team said they are preparing to appeal the denial of asylum to the country’s constitutional court, a process that could give McAfee perhaps another day or two in Guatemala. The court would have to issue a decision within 48 hours. Later, he is released from the hospital and taken back to the detention center.
Judge issues stay order
McAfee’s lawyer brings a judge to the jail who issues a stay order until a higher judge can review the case. According to McAfee, this effectively stops immigration from returning him to the Belize border.
In Guatemalan jail
McAfee is detained in Guatemala at the immigration office by the S.P.T. (Special Police Task force) Vice magazine films the arrest. McAfee later blogs from his cell:
I am in jail in Guatemala. Vastly superior to Belize jails. I asked for a computer and one magically appeared. The coffee is also excellent. Only time will tell what will happen. No one has a crystal ball. However, I would be truly shocked if I did not conduct the press conference tomorrow as I had originally planned. Stay tuned.
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.
Seeks asylum in Guatemala
McAfee hires Guerra, the former attorney general of Guatemala, as his lawyer, after they meet at a Guatemala City hotel on Tuesday. McAfee’s arrival in Guatemala comes after days of confusion and secrecy about his whereabouts. Guerra:
I have to manage his political asylum.
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.
GSU raids compound
According to McAfee, at 10:45 A.M, the GSU and the Coast Guard raid his property in San Pedro. They confiscate approximately $400,000 worth of property – cameras, computers, police gear purchased for donations and other items. They spend three hours ransacking every one of the buildings. McAfee claims this is the eigth search of his property since his disappearance and believes that this time they have planted something.
It is certain, in my mind that something or other was planted during this search. What it may be, I have no clue.
Apologizes to Wise
According to a previous post by McAfee, Wise had come to New Mexico to write about McAfee’s flying adventures for Wired magazine, and had spent the night with a woman who was not his wife. Their public display of affection had prompted McAfee to say to the other guests, “somebody get pictures of this to send to his wife in case we get a bad story from him”. According to McAfee, despite this being a joke pictures were actually taken and some of those did find their way to Wise’s wife. McAfee says Wise blamed him for sending the pics and apologizes on his blog:
I have erroneously accused Jeff Wise of improper behavior on a reporting trip that he did to my flying ranch in New Mexico. I finally received the photos from that trip and was going to publish them, and when I looked at them, to my horror, it was a different reporter (whose name I will obviously not release) from a different magazine, on a different trip. I wish that I could excuse myself due to the fact that I did dozens of interviews and appeared in dozens of magazines during my flying times in New Mexico, and could be expected to be confused, but that is no excuse. Jeff’s trip did not even include a campfire session…I was wrong. I apologize. I know that that does not help, but I am truly sorry.
John McAfee apologizes to me on his blog. http://t.co/cbeZWeI8 Wasn't expecting that!
— Jeff Wise (@ManvBrain) November 26, 2012
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.