On April 30, 2012, McAfee's property in Orange Walk Town, Belize, was raided by the Gang Suppression Unit of the Belizean Police Department. McAfee was in bed with his girlfriend at that time, who McAfee said was traumatized by the incident. A GSU press release stated that McAfee was arrested for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon.[15][46][47][48] He was released without charge.[49] In 2012, Belize police spokesman Raphael Martinez confirmed that McAfee was neither convicted nor charged, but only suspected.[50]

On November 12, 2012, Belize police started a search for McAfee as a "person of interest" in connection to the murder of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull. Faull was found dead of a gunshot wound on November 11, 2012, at his home on the island of Ambergris Caye, the largest island in Belize.[51][52] Faull was a neighbor of McAfee.[53] In a November 2012 interview with Wired,[54] McAfee said that he has always been afraid police would kill him and thus refused their routine questions; he has since evaded the Belizean authorities.[53] Belize's prime minister Dean Barrow called McAfee "extremely paranoid, even bonkers".[55] McAfee fled Belize when he was sought for questioning concerning the murder.[56][57][58]

The magazine Vice accidentally gave away McAfee's location at a Guatemalan resort in early December 2012, when a photo taken by one of its journalists accompanying McAfee was posted with the Exif geolocation metadata still attached.[59] While in Guatemala, McAfee asked Chad Essley, an American cartoonist and animator, to set up a blog so that he could write about his experience while on the run.[60] McAfee then appeared publicly in Guatemala City, where he attempted to seek political asylum. On December 5, 2012, McAfee was arrested for illegally entering Guatemala. Shortly after being placed under arrest, a board to review McAfee's plea for asylum was formed. The committee denied his asylum, so he was taken from his holding facility to a detention center in order to await deportation to Belize.[61]

On December 6, 2012, Reuters and ABC News reported that McAfee had two minor heart attacks in a Guatemalan detention center and was hospitalized.[62][63] McAfee's lawyer stated that his client had not suffered heart attacks, but had instead suffered from high blood pressure and anxiety attacks.[64][65][66] McAfee later stated that he faked the heart attack while being held in Guatemala to buy time for his attorney to file a series of appeals that ultimately prevented his deportation to Belize, hastening the government's decision to send him back to the United States.[67] On December 12, 2012, McAfee was released from detention in Guatemala and deported to the United States.[68]

As of January 2014, Belizean police have presented no new accusations, and they have not persisted in seeking McAfee's imprisonment for any of the crimes they accused him of. However, they have auctioned off McAfee's seized assets, and his home was burned down under suspicious circumstances.[69]

On August 2, 2015, McAfee was arrested in Henderson County, Tennessee, on charges of one count of driving under the influence and one count of possession of a firearm while intoxicated