Tech mogul John McAfee found dead in jail cell hours after court ruled he should be returned to U.S. to face charges

A tech mogul was found dead in his Spanish jail cell, just houses after a court publicly ruled he should be returned to the U.S. to face fraud and money laundering charges.

According to multiple reports, John McAfee, the man behind the anti-virus company, was found dead in his cell on June 23. Spanish officials say his death appears to be suicide.

McAfee has been held in a Spanish jail since his October 2020 arrest. He was awaiting extradition back to the U.S. to face criminal charges. A ruling by a Spanish court was announced on June 23 that stated McAfee should be returned to the U.S.

In March, federal officials announced McAfee was indicted on a fraud and money laundering scheme that ranked in $13 million.

Federal prosecutors in New York say the two men and other members of McAfee's group conducted two schemes between December 2017 and October 2018. 

In the first scheme, the group bought large amounts of cryptocurrency at inexpensive market prices with the knowledge that McAfee would then publicly endorse them on his popular Twitter account. Cryptocurrency is qualified as commodities or securities. 

McAfee, 40, then published false or misleading endorsements and recommended the currency to inflate their market prices, without saying he owned large amounts, according to federal prosecutors. 

The group then sold their cryptocurrency at the short-term, inflated prices, the feds alleged.

Prosecutors say the group made more than $2 million in profit in that scheme. 

The second scheme involved team members using McAfee's Twitter account to publicly endorse fundraising events called "initial coin offerings," according to prosecutors. 

These offerings took startup business and sold digital coins as securities to the public, without disclosing the companies compensated McAfee and his team for the tweets. 

McAfee's team made more than $11 million in these offerings, according to the indictments.