SALON

Vice Magazine gives away John McAfee’s location

UPDATED: The eccentric fugitive hires a lawyer and sets out conditions for speaking to Belize authorities

Topics: John McAfee, Vice, Guatemala, Belize, Murder, anti-virus, ,

Vice Magazine gives away John McAfee's location McAfee's Twitter profile image (via @officialmcafee)

UPDATE, Dec. 5th, 11.00 am (EST): On Tuesday, following his confirmation that he has fled to Guatemala, John McAfee announced that he has retained an attorney and will meet with the Belize authorities on certain conditions. He posted on his blog:

To the Prime Minister of Belize I make the following offer:  I will agree to meet you in a neutral country to discuss our mutual issues.  It is entirely possible that you have little or no knowledge of the level of corruption being propagated throughout every branch of your government.  I will turn over to you thousands of hours of video and audio as proof, providing that we meet as gentlemen and are mutually convinced of our honesty.

To the family of Gregory Faul:  I had nothing to do with his death.  I have lost five close family members in my 67 years and I know your suffering.

The eccentric fugitive has retained as his defense lawyer Telésforo Guerra, former Attorney General for the country of Guatemala and the his girlfriend Samantha Vanegas’ uncle.

 

Dec. 4th: John McAfee’s time on the lam from Belize police is coming to an end. The eccentric anti-virus mogul is wanted in connection to a murder near his island home and confirmed his current whereabouts in Guatemala Tuesday, following the accidental outing of his location by a Vice Magazine editor.

McAfee blogged:

I apologize for all of the misdirections over the past few days.  It was not easy to exit Belize and required many supporters in many countries.  I am in Guatemala and will be meeting with Guatemalan officials this morning.  If all goes well I will do a press conference tomorrow. Vice Magazine reporters are indeed with me in Guatemala.  Yesterday was chaotic due to the accidental release of my exact co-ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice headquarters.

On Monday, Vice’s Editor-In-Chief Rocco Castoro reported on the Vice site that he was with McAfee making a documentary. Castoro accompanied his post with a photo featuring himself with the fugitive. As Gawker’s Adrian Chen noted, “it had been taken with an iPhone and hadn’t been scrubbed of GPS data, which revealed it was taken just three hours earlier in Guatemala, near the border with Belize.”

A software mogul busted by software — some irony indeed.

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Comments

2 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>