John McAfee's Instagram account posted a picture of a Q following his suicide on Wednesday.

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John McAfee's Instagram account was deleted after it posted the letter Q following his suicide in jail

By Ashley Collman



John McAfee's Instagram account seemed to have been taken down after posting an apparent reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory following the cybersecurity-software founder's death on Wednesday.

McAfee, 75, died by suicide in a Barcelona jail after learning that Spain's National Court had approved his extradition to the US to face charges of tax evasion and fraud, his lawyer told Reuters.

Within 30 minutes of English-language news outlets reporting McAfee's death, his Instagram account posted a picture of a Q, The Independent reported.

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The letter appeared to be a reference to the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which is based on the false notion that former President Donald Trump was attempting to take down a "deep state" cabal of human traffickers and pedophiles.

McAfee's Instagram account has since been removed. Instagram did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Shortly after the "Q" post went up, the company told Insider it was "looking into" the post.

It was not immediately clear who had control of McAfee's Instagram account. Insider contacted McAfee's wife, Janice, and his lawyer for comment.

In 2019, when McAfee was jailed on different charges, a post on his Instagram account implied that someone on his team was running it, The Daily Beast reported.

"We are under good information our dear friend John McAfee is being unlawfully detained by authorities. We thank everyone for the outpouring of support," that post said, according to The Daily Beast.

McAfee had been jailed in Barcelona since October while awaiting a decision on the extradition request.

An image that said "Free McAfee" was published on his Instagram after his arrest. McAfee appeared to remain active on Twitter; a tweet on June 16 pushed back on the accusation that he had hidden cryptocurrency earnings.

While Spain's National Court on Wednesday had signed off on his transfer to the US, it had not been finalized.

According to The Independent, the Spanish Council of Ministers had yet to approve the extradition, and McAfee still had the opportunity to appeal the National Court's decision.

McAfee had long been a focus of conspiracy theorists.

He'd posted tweets implying he knew the identity of the person behind the QAnon movement.

In 2019, he got a tattoo that said "$WHACKD," telling his followers on Twitter to be skeptical if he were ever said to have died by suicide.

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"Getting subtle messages from U.S. officials saying, in effect: 'We're coming for you McAfee! We're going to kill yourself.' I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd. Check my right arm," the post read.

The hashtag #JohnMcAfeeDidntKill Himself spread on social media after news of McAfee's death on Wednesday. QAnon followers spread a similar theory when the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019.

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