John McAfee hits back at cryptocurrency fraud charges
Computing legend John McAfee has hit back at US prosecutors who last night formally charged him with cryptocurrency fraud.
The 75-year-old programmer – currently held in a Spanish prison for tax evasion – is facing extradition to the US where is accused of promoting various cryptocurrencies through social media in order to inflate prices before selling them off for £1.45m ($2m).
Prosecutors in New York are citing allegations from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which raised concern about McAfee’s use of Twitter to promote digital assets to his one million followers.
According to files submitted to the Federal Court in Manhattan, McAfee and his personal bodyguard Jimmy Watson Junior are alleged to have been selling crypto assets once they had been able to inflate their prices. The files allege they also landed some £8m ($11m) from various fledgling cryptocurrency organisations as payments to promote the start-ups.
McAfee, however, slammed the accusations as “overblown” and insisted he was not guilty of any wrongdoing with cryptocurrencies.
“My team evaluated every promotion based on management, business plans and potential,” he said this morning.
Market crash
“No one could have foreseen the altcoin market crash. We were paid in the same coins that crashed.
“The SEC allegations are overblown.”
New York prosecutor Audrey Strauss, said Watson and McAfee had effectively “exploited a widely used social media platform and enthusiasm among investors in the emerging cryptocurrency market to make millions through lies and deception”.
Responding to Strauss, McAfee insisted he had made no profits through social media promotion and had not sold cryptocurrency on the back of it.
“My belief in the coins I promoted is exemplified by Docademic – the coin I promoted the most,” he argued.
“Even as it crashed I held every single coin allocated to me. I never sold a single coin. I believed in the company to the very end.”