On Wednesday, December 5th, Immigration officials in Guatemala, aided by Interpol, detained the eccentric and oft-unbalanced U.S. national, 67-year-old John McAfee.
Reports indicate that McAfee was arrested in Guatemala for illegally entering that country and indications are that the Guatemalan Government is seeking to expel him to Belize. Reuters quoted Guatemala’s Interior Minister, Mauricio Lopez Bonilla as saying, “He entered the country illegally and we are going to seek his expulsion for this crime.”
Francisco Cuevas, a spokesperson for the Guatemalan Government told CNN that McAfee is being held at a shelter belonging to the Guatemalan Immigration Department where he is awaiting processing after which he will be expelled from the country. He reiterated that he is not being arrested, rather he will be expelled from Guatemala at the very point where he entered. That point, according to McAfee himself, was somewhere in Santa Elena at the Western Border.
Just hours earlier, McAfee, through his attorney, Telesforo Guerra, had started legal proceedings seeking asylum in Guatemala. According to Cuevas, those proceedings are now null since he entered the country illegally. The processing of McAfee is expected to see him returned to Belize’s Western Border sometime between 6 a.m. and 12 noon on Thursday.
Since Sunday, November 11th when his neighbor, 52-year-old U.S. national, Gregory Viant Faull, was found dead in his home with a bullet to the back of the head, John McAfee has been on the run from police. Since that time, he has been playing an elaborate game of cloak and dagger with Belizean law enforcement personnel, often telling fantastic stories of narrow escapes from police in Belize. He’s attracted so much attention on the international media that there are many who are following his escapades as an almost daily soap opera dose.
