Anti-virus software developer McAfee arrives in US
MIAMI (AP) — Anti-virus software founder John McAfee arrived in the U.S. on Wednesday night after being deported from Guatemala, where he had sought to evade police questioning in the killing of a man in neighboring Belize.
The American Airlines commercial jet carrying McAfee landed in Miami shortly before 7 p.m., said Miami International Airport spokesman Greg Chin.
A short time later, a posting on McAfee's website announced that he was at a hotel in Miami's upscale South Beach neighborhood. He said he arrived by taxi after a group of customs or immigration agents, he didn't know which, escorted him to an airport taxi stand. McAfee has frequently communicated through the website.
"I have no phone, no money, no contact information," the post said. Reached by telephone at the hotel, the 67-year-old McAfee told an AP reporter that he couldn't talk because he was waiting for a call from his girlfriend, 20-year-old Belizean Samantha Vanegas.
Vanegas had accompanied him when he was on the run, but did not go with him to the U.S.
On a blog he has been posting for the past two weeks, McAfee wrote, "I have been forcibly separated from Sam," but claimed she would be coming to the United States later.
McAfee sat in a coach-class seat on the flight, which took off at midafternoon from Guatemala City, according to the airline.
Other passengers on the flight told The Associated Press that McAfee was escorted off the aircraft before others were allowed to disembark.
"They asked us to please stay seated and said, 'Mr. John McAfee, come to the front,' and he did," said Maria Claridge, a 36-year-old photographer from Fort Lauderdale. "He walked very peacefully, chin up. He didn't seem stressed."
Claridge said she did not see what happened to McAfee after he left the aircraft. She said he was well dressed, in a black suit and white shirt, appeared to be traveling alone and that she didn't realize who he was until another passenger told her.
"I thought he was either a diplomat or a politician," she said. "It just seemed eerie to be traveling on an airplane with someone who was in trouble."
An FBI spokesman in Miami, James Marshall, told the AP in an email that the agency is not involved with McAfee's return to the U.S.
Authorities from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals office and the U.S. attorney's office did not immediately respond to questions about whether McAfee would be questioned or detained in the U.S. They said there was no active arrest warrant for McAfee that would justify taking him into custody.
Bystanders in Guatemala City stopped to stare at the passing police convoy that escorted McAfee to the Central American country's international airport. People at the airport crowded around the immigration truck carrying McAfee, straining to take pictures of him with their cellphones.
"I'm free. I'm going to America," McAfee said before boarding the plane.
McAfee was detained last week for immigration violations after he sneaked into Guatemala. He suggested his weeklong detention there had taken its toll on him.
"All I can tell you is, I'm 10 years older, and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just going to Miami," he said.
The British-born McAfee said Sunday that he wanted to return to the United States and "settle down to whatever normal life" he can. "I simply would like to live comfortably day by day, fish, swim, enjoy my declining years."
He later said that he also would be happy to go to England, noting, "I have dual citizenship."
McAfee's expulsion from Guatemala marked the last chapter in a strange, monthlong odyssey to avoid police questioning about the November killing of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull, who lived a couple of houses down from McAfee's compound on Ambergris Caye, off Belize's Caribbean coast.
McAfee has acknowledged that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them days before some of the dogs were poisoned, but denies killing Faull.
He was in hiding in Belize for weeks after police pronounced him a person of interest in the killing. Belizean authorities have urged him to show up for questioning, but have not lodged any formal charges against him. McAfee has said he feared he would be killed if he turned himself in to Belizean authorities.
Belize's prime minister, Dean Barrow, has expressed doubts about McAfee's mental state, saying: "I don't want to be unkind to the gentleman, but I believe he is extremely paranoid, even bonkers."
McAfee is an acknowledged practical joker who has dabbled in yoga, ultra-light aircraft and the production of herbal medications. He has led an eccentric life since he sold his stake in the software company named after him in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower his taxes.
He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but $4 million of his $100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis. However, a story on the Gizmodo website quoted him as describing that claim as "not very accurate at all."
The American Airlines commercial jet carrying McAfee landed in Miami shortly before 7 p.m., said Miami International Airport spokesman Greg Chin.
A short time later, a posting on McAfee's website announced that he was at a hotel in Miami's upscale South Beach neighborhood. He said he arrived by taxi after a group of customs or immigration agents, he didn't know which, escorted him to an airport taxi stand. McAfee has frequently communicated through the website.
"I have no phone, no money, no contact information," the post said. Reached by telephone at the hotel, the 67-year-old McAfee told an AP reporter that he couldn't talk because he was waiting for a call from his girlfriend, 20-year-old Belizean Samantha Vanegas.
Vanegas had accompanied him when he was on the run, but did not go with him to the U.S.
On a blog he has been posting for the past two weeks, McAfee wrote, "I have been forcibly separated from Sam," but claimed she would be coming to the United States later.
McAfee sat in a coach-class seat on the flight, which took off at midafternoon from Guatemala City, according to the airline.
Other passengers on the flight told The Associated Press that McAfee was escorted off the aircraft before others were allowed to disembark.
"They asked us to please stay seated and said, 'Mr. John McAfee, come to the front,' and he did," said Maria Claridge, a 36-year-old photographer from Fort Lauderdale. "He walked very peacefully, chin up. He didn't seem stressed."
Claridge said she did not see what happened to McAfee after he left the aircraft. She said he was well dressed, in a black suit and white shirt, appeared to be traveling alone and that she didn't realize who he was until another passenger told her.
"I thought he was either a diplomat or a politician," she said. "It just seemed eerie to be traveling on an airplane with someone who was in trouble."
An FBI spokesman in Miami, James Marshall, told the AP in an email that the agency is not involved with McAfee's return to the U.S.
Authorities from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals office and the U.S. attorney's office did not immediately respond to questions about whether McAfee would be questioned or detained in the U.S. They said there was no active arrest warrant for McAfee that would justify taking him into custody.
Bystanders in Guatemala City stopped to stare at the passing police convoy that escorted McAfee to the Central American country's international airport. People at the airport crowded around the immigration truck carrying McAfee, straining to take pictures of him with their cellphones.
"I'm free. I'm going to America," McAfee said before boarding the plane.
McAfee was detained last week for immigration violations after he sneaked into Guatemala. He suggested his weeklong detention there had taken its toll on him.
"All I can tell you is, I'm 10 years older, and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just going to Miami," he said.
The British-born McAfee said Sunday that he wanted to return to the United States and "settle down to whatever normal life" he can. "I simply would like to live comfortably day by day, fish, swim, enjoy my declining years."
He later said that he also would be happy to go to England, noting, "I have dual citizenship."
McAfee's expulsion from Guatemala marked the last chapter in a strange, monthlong odyssey to avoid police questioning about the November killing of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull, who lived a couple of houses down from McAfee's compound on Ambergris Caye, off Belize's Caribbean coast.
McAfee has acknowledged that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them days before some of the dogs were poisoned, but denies killing Faull.
He was in hiding in Belize for weeks after police pronounced him a person of interest in the killing. Belizean authorities have urged him to show up for questioning, but have not lodged any formal charges against him. McAfee has said he feared he would be killed if he turned himself in to Belizean authorities.
Belize's prime minister, Dean Barrow, has expressed doubts about McAfee's mental state, saying: "I don't want to be unkind to the gentleman, but I believe he is extremely paranoid, even bonkers."
McAfee is an acknowledged practical joker who has dabbled in yoga, ultra-light aircraft and the production of herbal medications. He has led an eccentric life since he sold his stake in the software company named after him in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower his taxes.
He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but $4 million of his $100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis. However, a story on the Gizmodo website quoted him as describing that claim as "not very accurate at all."
Good... now ship his butt to Belize.
8I am. Not sure what to think on. This. It seems that this all "smoke and mirors".
Is this guy a nut job? Something just does not ring true in all of this media garbage, but then what is actually true in the media?
He just needs to be checked through his own virus protection software. It would probably delete him without any residue! Who really cares what becomes of him?
 @jpk Maybe a competitor's AV. His would still be stalled on the scan from 3 months ago using 99% proc time and slowly leaking memory.
 @jpk Well, He is a human being after all... But Yes his Antivirus Software Was hell in trying to remove it...I wonder.. If those who make the Antivirus Software.
I stay away from the "Dirty sites" I remember a time of Sprites and the like.
I have even written a virus..Sad to say.. I no longer have my C-64 it died due to the virus...I haven't written any code since...
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I remember our computer instructor challenging us to hack the TRS 80's I declined to do so.. at a later the school system really did get hacked. Kids still Hacking lol..
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But people do not know the difference between white hats and black hats and the neutrals. No one in the general public knows about the newer worms, zombis, nibblers, Trojans ,Commits vixens , cupids and half a trillion other things in the wild.. Ones computer needs more then just a "condom" to protect it from Sexually transmitted disease. Did I mention that there is even a Virus named "AIDS."
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Ah yes soem programmers come up with some interesting names..Oh and that last whopper of a virus..It is still in the wild..The are ones more powerful then that one designed to kill central fuses .
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The only reason why I am not working as a computer tech..the truth is.. I don't have the intelligence for it and I can't fathom doing extortion just to repair a PC. All those doing Porn I might have a different attitude about it. If they can afford porn then they can afford the fee for repairing or Zeroing out there HDD. or SSD .
He will probably face extradition, and at 66 must be doing good with a 20 year old girlfriend.
@RandyH Is there an extradition between the US and Belize? If not he is home free.
I think this is a cover Story.. There is a much deeper story then waht can be told, He is going in to police protection under US. His detention was part of a way to get his documentation into the US and get Protection under what is left of our constitution, He Paid his way to get here legally.
What I also mean by this is the person that killed his neighbor may have been gunning for him.
There are people in Guatemala who sneak into Mexico for a better life. When you are a rich dude who gets deported from Guatemala, you know there is definitely something wrong with ya. I wonder if McAffee has really bad BO. That could explain also why the girlfriend is not with him now.
 @DirtmanÂ
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Very abstract and stream of semi-consciousness post; are you channeling WSB or possible William Carlos Williams?
hang him
 @LostSoulÂ
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That post is too funny...provided your goal was an ironic commentary on all the judgmental conservatives that make life and death judgements based solely on either skin color or the pronunciation of a last name, either of which might condemn a person, or some other arbitrary and superficial factor that doesn't involve any facts; otherwise, it's just pathetic. Either way; best post of the day!
Looks like in the end Mr. McAfee will get his wish and not return to Belize for questioning. I think he will struggle to stay out of the headlines in the months to come.
 @DeaconBuggÂ
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Yes, he'll likely face a ton of scrutiny from the US authorities but he has created a huge distance in time and space from the event which serves his interest more than justice.