Charismatic huckster, arch self-promoter or fugitive? John McAfee, the tech millionaire who fled Belize after the murder of his neighbour, eludes easy descriptions.
Smuggling himself across the border from Belize to Guatemala, Mr McAfee said he had evaded capture by dying his hair and beard, and puffing up his face by filling his mouth with chewing gum.
He claims he is being persecuted by the authorities and says that he has nothing to do with the death of his neighbour, Florida businessman Gregory Faull.
“Now that I’m here I can speak freely. I can speak openly,” he told reporters in Guatemala City, saying that he would expose corruption in Belize’s government.
Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow had a more prosaic explanation: “I don’t want to be unkind to the gentleman, but I believe he is extremely paranoid, even bonkers.”
Belize police named him a “person of interest” in the murder, and Guatemalan police have now arrested him and said they would seek to send him back.
His exit from Belize was hardly low profile. He fled with two journalists from Vice magazine who accidentally informed the world of his exact whereabouts by posting an image with GPS co-ordinates embedded in it.