On the Lam with John McAfee

Update 4: The meta-data wasn't a ruse; Vice messed up and accidentally leaked McAfee's location, the antivirus pioneer admitted on his blog. He intends to hold a press conference tomorrow in Guatemala City, and has retained a lawyer to help him with his little illicit border crossing.

Update 2: Gizmodo just put out a story linking to someone who dug out the metadata from the original version of the above photo posted by VICE, which included a geotag that placed McAfee in Guatemala. Robert King, the photographer down with Rocco, wrote on Facebook that the geotag was actually manipulated, and McAfee himself has posted an apology to VICE on his blog for having changed the EXIF data himself. We'll update you as we learn more.

Update: As you can see in this photo, the reporter on the ground is none other than VICE editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro. Preview footage from a longform video doc is on the way.

Update 3: Eric Heyden, a public affairs officer at the US Embassy in Belize, told Motherboard that the embassy had not been in communication with McAfee but that if he sought help or refuge at its consular affairs section or that of any other embassy in the region, the State Department would render assistance, as it would for any American citizen in trouble.

"We are concerned in the sense that he's an American citizen, and if an American citizen is having problems, if we can help out, we'd help out," Heyden said. He would not comment on the legality of McAfee's alleged escape from the authorities. But he said that the Belizean police have only called McAfee "a person of interest," and "I would take them at their word: they've said they wanted to speak to him only for questioning." Still, he said, he was concerned for McAfee's safety. "He seems to be in a bind, and I wish the gentleman well." - Alex Pasternack

Despite a press release saying he'd been arrested at the Mexican border, we can confirm that John McAfee is still on the run, and that some of our colleagues from VICE are currently with him. For their own safety, we can't say where exactly they are, but we can say that they are filming a video that's set to publish sometime in the next 24 hours. Check back here for the video, we'll let you know when it's live.

The false release in question came from whoismcafee.com, a site apparently run by Brian Fitzgerald, McAfee's spokesman. That post was a ruse, and was followed today by a post by McAfee himself announcing that he is safe, and that a

'double', carrying on a North Korean passport under my name, was in fact detained in Mexico for pre-planned misbehavior, but due to indifference on the part of authorities was evicted from the jail and was unable to serve his intended purpose in our exit plan.  He is now safely out of Mexico.

Whether or not you've already forgotten about McAfee's lengthy, bath salts-filled saga, the story of his downfall is worth going back for another read. McAfee has been blogging pretty consistently throughout his escape from Belize, where he's a person of interest in the murder of his neighbor, but like much of his recent history, sorting out what's true, not true, and sort of in-between is difficult. We'll have more info once the VICE video is live, but until then, all we can say is that the McAfee saga isn't over yet.