By Jonathan Stempel and Chris Prentice
NEW YORK / WASHINGTON (Reuters) – John McAfee, the pioneer of antivirus software whose former company still bears his name, was indicted for fraud and conspiracy to launder money stemming from two cryptocurrency schemes, the United States Department of Justice said. on Friday.
The authorities accused McAfee and his bodyguard, Jimmy Gale Watson Jr., of exploiting McAfee’s great Twitter to artificially inflate altcoin prices through a scheme called “pump-and-dump” and to hide payments that McAfee received from start-ups to promote currency offers.
The Justice Department said McAfee and his accomplices raised more than $ 13 million from the schemes. The charges were brought before the federal court in Manhattan.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed civil lawsuits related to the alleged pump-and-dump scheme.
Manhattan Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement: “As alleged, McAfee and Watson exploited a widely used social media platform and the enthusiasm among investors in the emerging cryptocurrency market to make millions through lies and deception. . “
McAfee’s lawyers could not be immediately identified. McAfee is being detained in Spain after his arrest for tax evasion announced in October, the Justice Department said.
Watson was arrested Thursday night in Texas, the department added.
Watson’s lawyer, Arnold Spencer, said in a statement: “Jimmy Watson is a decorated veteran and former Navy guarantor. He has fought for the rights and freedoms of others and has the right and hopes to come to court one day to exercise some of those rights. “
Both also face civil charges by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, which in October accused McAfee of hiding more than $ 23.1 million it earned from the increase in seven cryptocurrency offers on Twitter.
In cryptocurrency cases, officials said McAfee praised assets including Verge, Reddcoin and Dogecoin as part of a “Coin of the Day” or “Coin of the Week” tweet from about December 2017 to February 2018.
Authorities said McAfee considered himself an expert on cybersecurity and cryptocurrency through his tweets, speeches and his role as CEO of a publicly traded cryptocurrency company. They also accused him of telling followers that he had no interest in coins, even when he boasted about how they “would change the world”.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Chris Prentice in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Will Dunham)