The drama in tech mogul John McAfee's life never seems to end.
The Belize compound where he lived before he snuck out of the country to avoid talking to police about a murder was burned to the ground last week.
No one was hurt.
Officials in Belize said the cause of the fire was burning brush nearby. McAfee, who is never one to shy away from a conspiracy theory, said on his blog and in interviews that he thinks it was arson.
The two main buildings that were destroyed had an estimated value of $250,000 apiece. On his blog, McAfee said that an investment firm was set to buy the property this week, but on a Q&A interview on Slashdot.org, he seemed to contradict himself, saying that, "That was my last property in Belize, went up in smoke. It's a very freeing sensation to have no burdensome taxes to pay or wages for upkeep and electricity and what have you. So they did me a favor."
McAfee, who founded the antivirus software company of the same name, was once among the super wealthy with a net worth of more than $100 million. But his personal fortune took a nose dive to about $4 million after the 2008 economic collapse, reported the New York Times in 2009.
McAfee's life in Belize became an epic tale late last year after his neighbor, an American citizen named Gregory Faull, was murdered. Police wanted to question McAfee about it. Instead, McAfee fled in James-Bond-like style: His escapade involved hiding in the jungle with one of his girlfriends, faking his own capture, faking a heart attack, all while blogging about it and taking along a journalist and camera crew, too.
In between, the details of his life in Belize leaked out which were equally bizarre. He lived with a "harem" of young women, from nine to a dozen, some of which he said were presented to him as 16-year-old prostitutes. There was also speculation that he used an odd drug called MDPV.
He eventually landed in Guatemala and was extradited to the United States. He lives in Oregon and was never charged with anything in connection with Faull's death.
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