John McAfee prosecution for ICO pump-and-dump

Who is John McAfee?

John McAfee came to the industry within the 1980s when his firm released the primary commercial anti-virus program – McAfee VirusScan – and helped him starting a multi-billion dollar Silicon Valley industry. Although that business sold to Intel, he still creates cyber-security items of his own.

John McAfee prosecution and was captured in Spain and soon will witness extradition to the US where he has been charged with tax evasion. Prosecutors say he failed to record tax returns for four years, in spite of winning millions from counseling work, talking engagements, cryptocurrencies, and advertising the rights to his life story.

In a statement, the US Justice Department said Mr. McAfee supposedly avoided tax liability by having his income paid into bank accounts and cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the names of nominees. As a result, it is alleged, he failed to record any tax returns from 2014 to 2018 and should face John McAfee prosecution .

In 2012, he made headlines after that, police within the Central American country of Belize explored the death of one of Mr. McAfee’s neighbors he was considered as a “person of interest“.

McAfee has denied killing one of his neighbors in Belize. Also, McAfee said he did not kill individual American Gregory Faull, who was found shot dead on Sunday on Ambergris Caye island, off the Belize coast, where both men lived.

John McAfee prosecution on American soil

Nowadays, the United States Attorney for the Southern Area of New York, William F. Sweeney, reported the unsealing of a seven-count John McAfee prosecution charging John David McAfee, founder of McAfee, and Jimmy Gale Watson, an official advisor to McAfee, with pump-and-dump plans, as well as initial coin offering (ICO) touting schemes.

On March 4, 2021, Watson arrested in Texas. McAfee has been in Spanish custody since October 2020, after being captured on U.S. tax evasion charges (October 2020 prosecution), and is anticipating extradition to the United States. He is additionally being sought by specialists in Belize for addressing the murder of his neighbor, Greg Faull. Which occurred in November 2012.

With this John McAfee prosecution . He proceeds his fall from grace; at the height of Silicon Valley’s go-go era, the company which bears his name once sat solidly at the vanguard of cybersecurity.

McAfee has been active in cryptocurrency. Also, he is as evidence by the Oct 2020 prosecution (US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee) for failure to pay his income tax on his profit derived from his speaking engagements (2014-16); rights to his life story for film documentary (2015-16); consultant work (2016-18) and through his promotion of cryptocurrencies (2017-18).

The latter parcel of the 2020 John McAfee prosecution shows up to be extraneously related to the most later prosecution.

John McAfee prosecution March 2021 

Pump and Dump – McAfee and Watson charge with acquiring large amounts of publicly-traded crypto altcoins at “inexpensive market prices“. After that, At that point, McAfee would, through his Twitter account “Official McAfee,” would promote the esteem of these altcoins to investors to inflate the price.

Besides, the criminal allegations includes the result of the FBI’s assessment of Skype communications between McAfee and different team individuals. One of the targeted stocks is recognize as “Verge” (aka XVG).

McAfee’s Pump-and-Dump M.O. Explained

On December 13, 2017, McAfee transferred $15,000 to one of his team members. And coordinated one-third of the sum and used to buy XVG tokens at market price. After that, from Dec. 13 to 17, McAfee endorsed the XVG tokens on his Twitter account. Interestingly, McAfee called out in a Tweet for pumping XVG, and he reacted denying he owned any XVG.

The tale of John McAfee prosecution starts here. Also, McAfee also engaged in direct, one-on-one discussions, by means of text messages. With investors concerning the XVG token opportunity, denying any ownership on all occasions.

After four days of pumping XVG on Dec. 17, the team member instructed to dump XVG, and McAfee et al. garnered a $30,000 benefit. The complaint notes that the price for XVG tokens fell 85% in the following year.

McAfee continued to bait the snare with his “Coin of the day”. Tweets, in which he would identify cryptocurrency altcoins investment openings for his followers.

Altcoins recognized by the DoJ as part of his pump-and-dump scheme include Electroneum (ETN). Besides, Dogecoin (DOGE), Burstcoin (BURST), DigiByte (DGB), Reddcoin (RDD). Tron (TRX), Humaniq (HMQ), Factom (FCT), Stellar Lumen (XLM), Syscoin (SYS) and Ripio Credit Network (RCN) tokens. But what is ICO and what does this have to do with John McAfee prosecution ?

Initial Coin Offerings

John McAfee prosecution and Watson also charged, once more. Utilizing the power of McAfee’s Twitter account to “tout the fundraising events” of the ICOs. What McAfee neglected to say is that he is compensate by the ICO issuers. And that a large rate of each ICO investment skimmed off the beat. Like rich cream, to compensate McAfee and others without unveiling that compensation to the unwitting investors. For their efforts, the Department of Justice gauges that McAfee et al. Took around $11m by touting seven ICOs from Dec 2017 through Feb 2018.

When questioned, McAfee denied accepting any remuneration; instead suggesting his intuition was responsible for his selection which these coins would “improve our lives,” – well, at least McAfee’s.

References
https://news.sky.com/story/anti-virus-software-creator-john-mcafee-charged-with-fraud…
https://securityboulevard.com/2021/03/john-mcafee-indicted-for-ico-manipulation…
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56300593…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/03/05/john-mcafee-indicted-on-fraud…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-mcafee/antivirus-software-pioneer…