Mr. McAfee and Mr. Castoro (Photo: Vice)

The twisted saga of John McAfee continues, much to our great entertainment. The newest installment of this bizarre tale? Mr. McAfee now believes that highers up at Vice orchestrated the release of his location via iPhone metadata so that they could film his inevitable capture and arrest.

According to a post on his blog:

Mr. McAfee is terminating his relationship with Vice Magazine.  Due to information just received, It is no longer clear to Mr. McAfee that the “accidental” release of his co-ordinates due to Vice Magazine’s editorial department’s failure to remove location data from their now notorious photo, was indeed an accident.  This incident led directly to Mr. McAfee’s arrest.  The reason, possibly, was that Vice wanted exclusive access to Mr. McAfee’s arrest, which they in fact obtained and broadcast.  This, and subsequent developments, including a breach of verbal contract, has led Mr. McAfee to terminate all contact with Vice.

We suppose it could be true, but Mr. McAfee isn't exactly a trusted source at this point. He also claims in the post that the "two reporters" embedded with him didn't know of the plan to out him; this seems unlikely, given that Vice's own editor in chief Rocco Castoro was with him the whole time. That kind of nefarious scheme seems a little too complex to keep from the person in charge of the magazine's editorial mission. Of course, Mr. McAfee could've used the term "reporters" specifically to hint that the editor Mr. Castoro did know (at this point we're starting to feel like we're on bath salts ourselves).

Mr. McAfee has an extensive history of burning reporters, using them as pawns in a tightly-controlled game of mass media manipulation. He originally showered his attentions on reporter Jeff Wise, but that relationship also soured. In the comments of his most recent post, "Harold M."--who is supposedly a close friend of Mr. McAfee's but could be the man himself--jokes Mr. Wise is "acting like a jilted lover :)." Ouch.

Get an eyeful, suckers. (Robert King/Vice)

The sordid tale of John McAffe's flight from the Belizean police has had a little bit of everything. Poisoned dogs, automatic weapons, disgusting disguises, bath salts—to say nothing of the fake North Korean passport, benighted rants on political corruption Central America-style, even a lesson on the importance of wiping GPS data from your iPhone pics when on the lam. One thing it's lacked: True Love.

Oh sure, Mr. McAfee has blogged on Belize's bar-girl culture, and offered a seemingly honest accounting of his own relationships with young, impoverished women. ("Many have commented that these women were only with me because of my money – a fact that I have to agree with," he blogged on November 19 title "Love and Deception.")

Well, there's nothing like a few weeks on the run to let romance blossom.

According to Vice editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro, one of the journalists who accidentally outed Mr. McAfee's location when an underling neglected to wipe EXIF data off a photo of Mr. McAfee yesterday, the anti-virus pioneer is getting ready to marry Sam Vanegas, his 20-year-old girlfriend and traveling companion.

Per Mr. Castoro, Mr. McAfee had just finished a "delicious breakfast of crepes and fresh fruit juice," when he hired hired a "powerful Guatemalan lawyer" named Telésforo Guerra, who happens to be Ms. Vanegas's uncle, and made the following profession:

I have known Samantha for a year and a half. She is a remarkable young woman. I love her very much and we are getting married. Unfortunately you will have a potential criminal in the family. My apologies for that, and I will do the best I can to make it up to you.

Awwww? Though we can't help but note when it comes to sweeping a 20-year-old woman off her feet and across international boundaries, it's a slippery slope between true love and human trafficking.

(Photo: Vice)

Today, Vice announced that it had managed to track down antivirus king John McAfee after he'd safely escaped Belize while wanted for questioning related to the murder of his neighbor. In smug hipster fashion, the online mag published a post called "We Are With John McAfee Right Now, Suckers," along with a photo showing Vice editor in chief Rocco Castoro posing sans smile next to a cross-armed Mr. McAfee.

But it turns out that Vice may have forgotten to scrub the EXIF data from the photo they uploaded. In fact, the photo's geolocation info shows that Mr. McAfee & Co. appear to be seeking safe harbor near Rio Dulce, Guatemala.

*Screenshot: Google Maps)

Vice writes that they've spent the past four days with Mr. McAfee, so the photo must have been taken during that timeframe; it's unclear whether Mr. McAfee is still in that location. The EXIF data indicates that the photo was taken today around 12:26 p.m.

After the discovery hit the web, Mr. McAfee quickly took to his blog to explain the mix-up. He claims that he manipulated the EXIF data to make it appear that they're in Guatemala, but the effect of the blog post comes off like he's covering for Vice:

I openly apologize to Vice Magazine for manipulating their recently published photo.  I have been ferocioously put my place by Mr. Rocco for “interfering” with the objectivity of their reporting.  I, for my own safety, manipulated the xif data on the image taken from my cellphone, and created a fake emrgency so that the urgency of movement led, as I knew it would, to the hasty posting on their website.  I felt that our tenuous situation demanded action, and that was the action that I chose.

I do not believe that Vice will remain with me further.  Again, my apologies.

Of course, there is a chance that Mr. McAfee did indeed screw over Vice, as it is possible to edit EXIF data. Photographer Robert King said on his Facebook page that "The GEO tag was manipulated.... To keep our location secret..."

But why would Mr. King claim he was in on manipulating the geo tag, when Mr. McAfee wrote a post apologizing for doing it behind Vice's back, effectively saying their working relationship is over? Additionally, why was the original asset photo deleted from Vice's website and reuploaded, after being Photoshopped and scraped of the geotag? Seems like a lot of ass covering for something you meant to do in the first place.

Lots o' questions. Either way, it is now much clearer who the real suckers are.