A LOCKED up computer tycoon who was born in a Forest US Army camp is facing new $13m dollar fraud and money laundering charges in the US.

Maverick businessman John McAfee, who invented the first commercial computer security software, is currently fighting extradition to America on multi-million dollar tax evasion charges while being detained in a Spanish jail.

The 75-year-old has now been charged by a US federal court with money laundering and ‘scalping’, through allegedly using his million-strong social media following to illegally ‘pump and dump’ crypto-currencies, while secretly being paid to promote initial coin offerings (ICOs) he touted to his fans.

Hs arrest last October at Barcelona Airport, where he was about to board a flight to Turkey, followed his indictment in June for tax evasion and wilful failure to file tax returns in the US between 2014 and 2018, despite reportedly earning millions from consulting work, crypto-currencies and selling the rights to his life story.

McAfee, who was born in a Cinderford army camp in September 1945 to a Forest mother and a US GI, has stood twice to be the Libertarian Party candidate in the US Presidential elections and is a self-confessed opponent of taxation and government.

In the new charges, he and his bodyguard - former Navy Seal Jimmy Gale Watson Jr, who was arrested in Texas last week - are accused of promoting crypto-currencies to McAfee’s large Twitter following to inflate prices.

The BBC said prosecutors claim the currencies were then sold, making the pair $2m (£1.45m), while they allegedly made a further $11m (£8m) in payments from crypto-currency start-ups for promoting their assets on Twitter, payments which were not disclosed to investors who bought them.

Crypto-currencies are digital currencies that can be used to buy goods and services, but use an online ledger with strong cryptography to secure online transactions. They are unregulated and attract speculators looking to make profits.

The latest charges filed in the Manhattan federal court in New York allege the pair bought the crypto-currency assets before promoting them on Twitter.

According to the US Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, they would then sell the assets as soon as McAfee’s endorsements saw prices rise.

That amounted to having “exploited a widely used social media platform and enthusiasm among investors in the emerging crypto-currency market to make millions through lies and deception,” said federal prosecutor Audrey Strauss.

Both also face civil charges filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which in October accused McAfee of concealing more than $23.1m (£16.7m at current prices) he made from boosting seven cryptocurrency offerings on Twitter.

In the crypto-currency cases, authorities have claimed that McAfee touted assets including Verge, Reddcoin and Dogecoin as part of a “Coin of the Day” or “Coin of the Week” tweet from around December 2017 through February 2018.

The tech giant made his fortune inventing McAfee VirusScan in the 1980s, which he later sold to Intel for $100m.

He has reportedly spent much of the last decade sailing outside US jurisdiction on his luxury yacht, the ‘Freedom Boat’, but was arrested in Spain, where he says he was travelling on his British passport, courtesy of his Forest birth and English mother.

McAfee, who describes himself on social media as a “lover of women, adventure and mystery” has hit back at the new charges on his Twitter account, saying: “Much of the new allegations from the Feds are about my “coin of the day”. For a few days in 2017 I chose coins I believed had value.

“One of them was Doge - now being touted years later by Elon Musk. The coin has increased well over 1,000% since I chose it. Not a pump and dump.”

He added: “My team evaluated every promotion based on management, business plans and potential. No one could have foreseen the altcoin market crash.

“We were paid in the same coins that crashed. The SEC allegations are overblown.

“My belief in the coins I promoted is exemplified by Docademic, the coin I promoted the most.

“Even as it crashed I held every single coin allocated to me. I never sold a single coin. I believed in the company to the very end.”

He has previousy said from his jail cell: ““I am a Libertarian… Many in our party believe that taxing income is unconstitutional.

“I have refused, in principle, to file returns or voluntarily pay taxes for ten years and for ten years have informed the IRS my refusal and my reasons…

“The income tax has done nothing but bloat the machinery of our government. I will not be complicit in this madness by overtly supporting it by filing my “required” tax returns.“

McAfee is also wanted for questioning in Belize over the 2012 murder of a neighbour, US businessman Gregory Faull.

He left the country after the killing, saying he feared for his own safety, but has said he has “no connection whatsoever” with the shooting.

“The prosecutor claims I am wanted for murder in Belize. This is false,” he has said. “I was not charged with murder nor was I a suspect. The Belizean authorities will confirm this.

“I was a person of interest like all of the murdered man’s neighbours. I chose not to be questioned. I was already at war with the Belizean government.”