John McAfee, the founder of the famous Antivirus software McAfee, has now been charged with fraud regarding cryptocurrency.
The news broke from the United States Justice Department on Friday that John McAfee would be indicted on fraud and money laundering charges relating to two cryptocurrencies.
The accusations are against McAfee and his bodyguard Jimmy Gale Watson Jr. They have been accused of inflating altcoins’ prices by using John McAfee’s Twitter account via the pump and dump schemes. There are also accusations of payment concealing, which McAfee received to promote initial coin offerings.
The case has been filed against McAfee, and the charges were bought in Manhattan federal court, where the justice department stated that McAfee and his accomplice had earned more than 13 million USD in this fraud.
The duo is also facing charges from October 2020 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They have been accused of concealing nearly 23 million USD by promoting seven cryptocurrencies on his Twitter account.
His role as a cybersecurity pioneer and CEO of an influential organization gave the impression to people in his words and altered cryptocurrencies in question.
While McAfee is being detained in Spain on charges of tax evasion from the lawsuit in October, his bodyguard Watson has been arrested on Thursday night in Texas.