McAfee founder booked on drug, weapons charges, report says

John McAfee, the man behind the anti-virus name, says he's being bugged by Belize's Gang Suppression Unit.

His home was raided by four different arms of armed Belize official organizations, including the GSU and the police. At least that is what is being reported by Channel 5 in Belize.

When I say "his home," this appears to consist of nine houses and is the site of the Belize Ecological Foundation. The Belize Gang Suppression Unit's press release declares that McAfee, 66, was there with his 17-year-old girlfriend (referred to as a minor) and five security guards.

The GSU reportedly says it discovered 10 firearms and 5 air rifles, all allegedly unlicensed. It also claims that it took samples of an alleged antibiotic that was being manufactured at this home. The GSU is sure that McAfee had no license for such a production, the report says.

Far, far worse is the fact that during the raid a dog was reportedly killed. The GSU says that the started biting the incoming forces of law, according to Channel 5. It seems that the officers might have shot it in retaliation -- or, a popular defense this, self-defense.

McAfee is someone that may have been described as a character once or twice. He sports fine tattoos and hair that has enjoyed additions of color. He wrote a book called "Into the Heart of Truth: The Spirit of Relational Yoga."

I am not sure if this is a book about how to do yoga with relations whom you can barely tolerate. However, McAfee's free spirit has seen him involved in all sorts of remote areas of the world's fair curvature.

However, The New York Times reported three years ago that his $100 million fortune had been decimated by the winds of Wall Street's excesses to a mere $4 million.

Oddly enough, he claims that the sudden descent of men in uniform has money at its root.

As his rebuttal to the uniforms butting in and ruining his breakfast, he told Channel 5: "It began, innocently enough, with my refusal to donate to the local political boss of the district where I lived in Orange Walk."

Surely he's not suggesting that this raid by at least 30 men in uniform -- in which he was handcuffed and arrested -- wasn't a political shakedown, is he? It seems that he might be.

"I have given at least $2 million in gifts to the police departments in Orange Walk, San Pedro, Belize City, to the village of Carmelita, the City of Orange Walk, " he continued.

I am not sure whether this $2 million might have come from the reported $4 million he had left in 2009. But what is clear is that McAfee is very, very annoyed. He says that it was only the intervention of the American Embassy that got him released.

He says it is very, very silly to, um, "invest" in politics.

"I think politics is foolish for a private citizen like myself to engage in -- the winning party; you never get your money and the losing party; your (sic) on the outs," he told Channel 5.

He does sound like a very astute man. Not for him the spectacle of giving vast sums to those who, if they lose, might infect his future.

I have tendency to support mavericks -- real ones, that is -- and McAfee seems to be one.

So I worry when reading this part of his statement to Channel 5: "This is clearly a military dictatorship where people are allowed to go and harass citizens based on rumor alone and treat them as if they are guilty before any evidence whatsoever is obtained. It is astonishing, it is beyond belief and I intended not to let this stand."

I am not sure that military dictatorships take kindly to disapproval. Though I had always thought that Belize's head of state was actually the Queen of England and the governing system is a parliamentary democracy.

Will this end in gunfire? Will the alleged antibiotic end up sucking the poison out of the atmosphere and curing all world illness, with McAfee and government taking 50 percent each?

One can only look forward to the next installment.