Federal agents escorted tech millionaire John McAfee, wanted for questioning in a murder investigation in Belize, off an aircraft Wednesday evening at Miami International Airport.
Then the agents apparently released him and he took a taxi to a South Beach hotel.
McAfee was flown to Miami after being deported from Guatemala.
Maria Claridge, a 36-year-old photographer, was on McAfee’s flight from Guatemala City that arrived in Miami just before 7 p.m.
“When we landed, they told us to stay in our seats and said ‘John McAfee, please come to the front of the plane,’ and he walked down the aisle with his head held high,” Claridge said. “I was a little worried, because I knew who he was and I was wondering why this person was on my plane.”
An airport spokesperson said federal agents were handling the case but would “not give details to protect his privacy.”
In a blog post titled “I am in South Beach,” McAfee said he was at the Beacon hotel with “no phone, no money, no contact information.”
The blog post said: “I was escorted off the plaane [sic] by Customs and Immigration. ‘We are here to help you sir,” the captain said. There were 10 agents and they whisked me to a safe place, asked some questions and then said ‘Where would you like to go?’ To a taxi stand. They did.”
On Miami Beach, McAfee was asked why he came to South Florida.
“I had no choice. They put me on an airplane. I’m here,” he told Miami Herald news partner CBS4.
McAfee became a “subject of interest” to Belizean police after the killing Nov. 11 of an Orlando.-area building contractor at his home a few hundred yards from McAfee’s beachfront property on Ambergris Caye, a tropical retirement destination near the world’s second longest barrier reef.
Wednesday night, McAfee also told CBS4 he had nothing to do with the murder.
McClatchy Mexico City bureau chief Tim Johnson contributed to this report.
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