The death of British-American antivirus pioneer John McAfee yesterday in his jail cell in Barcelona, Spain, hours after a court approved his extradition to the US to face charges of tax evasion, prompted multiple conspiracy theories. The Catalan justice department stated that “everything indicates” suicide. However, several conspiracy theories that resembled ones spread about Jeffrey Epstein — whose apparent suicide was met with widespread skepticism in fringe online communities — quickly gained prominence. The connection led “Epstein” to trend on Twitter. Users deployed the hashtag #McAfeeDidntKillHimself, which echoed the earlier #EpsteinDidntKillHimself hashtag.

Several conspiracy theories pointed to comments McAfee made on social media prior to his death. In several tweets late last year, he suggested he would not commit suicide and if found dead like Epstein, people should suspect foul play. Users pointed to these tweets as evidence that McAfee must not have killed himself. McAfee’s lawyer, Javier Villalba, told Reuters in a report published today that nine months of jail had brought him to despair. “This is the result of a cruel system that had no reason to keep this man in jail for so long,” he said.

An account claiming to be the official John McAfee Instagram page posted an image with the letter “Q” after his death was announced. It’s unclear who runs the account and it has since been removed from Instagram. Some cited this as a sign that he is still alive or evidence of foul play. The Instagram post was discussed extensively on social media platforms, including 4Chan, Reddit and Telegram. One claim viewed almost 5,000 times said that the Q post contained a “cryptographic key” in the image file. The claim continues to circulate after the user who first suggested it conceded it was likely just Instagram code. — APAC bureau