() – Divers inspecting the wreck of the $40 million superyacht that sank off Sicily in August, killing eight people — including British tech mogul Mike Lynch — have called for increased security on the ship amid concerns that sensitive data in its safes could be of interest to foreign governments, multiple sources told .
Italian prosecutors who have opened a criminal investigation into multiple manslaughter and negligent shipwreck believe the 56-meter (184-foot) yacht, the Bayesian, may contain highly sensitive data linked to several Western intelligence services, said four sources familiar with the investigation and the salvage operation.
Lynch was associated with British, American and other intelligence services through his various businesses, including the cybersecurity company he founded, Darktrace.
That company was sold to Chicago-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo in April. Lynch, whose wife’s company, Revtom Limited, owned the ship, was also an adviser to British Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May on science, technology and cybersecurity during their terms in office, according to British government records and Darktrace.
The sunken ship, which lies on the seabed at a depth of about 50 meters (164 feet), is believed to contain watertight safes with two super-encrypted hard drives containing highly classified information, including access codes and other sensitive data, an official involved in the salvage plans told , asking not to be named. Specialist divers with remote cameras have searched the ship extensively.
Initially, local law enforcement feared that potential thieves would try to reach the wreckage to find expensive jewelry and other valuables still aboard the yacht, according to fire department divers who spoke to . They are now concerned that the wreckage, which is expected to be raised in the coming weeks as part of the criminal investigation into the tragedy, is also of interest to foreign governments, including Russia and China. They have requested that the yacht be closely monitored, both on the surface and with underwater surveillance.
“A formal request to implement increased security for the remains until they can be recovered has been accepted and implemented,” Francesco Venuto of Sicily’s Civil Protection Agency confirmed to .
Lynch, her 18-year-old daughter Hannah, American lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, British banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, and the chef on board the yacht, Recaldo Thomas, died when the boat sank in a violent storm in the early hours of the morning.
Preliminary autopsy results suggest Bloomer and Morvillo died from asphyxiation or “dry drowning” when oxygen in an airlock in a sleeping cabin ran out. Autopsy results for Lynch and her daughter were less clear.
The chef, whose body was found off the ship, died from drowning, the coroner said. Toxicology reports on the dead have not yet been released, but none suffered physical injuries when the ship sank.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, and 14 others survived, including Captain James Cutfield, who, along with a deckhand and the yacht’s engine room manager, is under investigation for multiple manslaughter and negligent causing of a shipwreck. They have all been allowed to leave Italy.
Some of the 15 survivors — nine of whom were crew members and six were passengers, including a 1-year-old girl — allegedly told prosecutors that Lynch “did not trust cloud services” and always kept hard drives in a secure compartment on the yacht wherever he sailed, a source from the prosecutor’s office told . None of the crew members or passengers who survived the incident were tested for drugs or alcohol because they were in a “state of shock,” authorities said during a news conference following the recovery of the bodies.
Morvillo represented Lynch when he was acquitted in a U.S. criminal fraud case in June related to Hewlett Packard’s acquisition of his software company Autonomy, and survivors told investigators the cruise trip was a celebration of that acquittal, according to assistant prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano. Although Lynch was acquitted of any wrongdoing in the U.S., Hewlett Packard has indicated it will not drop its bid to collect a $4 billion civil payment from Lynch’s estate, awarded by a British court in 2022.
In what appears to be a tragic coincidence, Lynch’s business partner Stephen Chamberlain, who was her co-defendant in the US fraud case and former COO of Darktrace, died on August 19, the same day the Bayesian sank, after being hit by a car while jogging two days earlier. A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office told that Cutfield told them Lynch had learned of Chamberlain’s serious condition and had planned to cut the cruise short to return to the UK to see his business partner, who was on life support.
The Bayesian sank just hours before Chamberlain died in the hospital, his lawyer said. Lynch would not have known of his partner’s death, and Chamberlain was in a coma, so he would not have known of the sinking, Chamberlain’s lawyer said.
Local prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said no personal effects, including computers, jewellery or Lynch’s hard drives, had been recovered from the boat. However, hard drives on board and surveillance cameras linked to the yacht’s navigation system have been turned over to investigators to determine if there is any usable data that could indicate how the yacht sank in just 16 minutes after the storm hit. The boat did not have a traditional black box or voyage data recorder to record navigation or audio data at the time of the episode.
After divers complete inspections of the wreck this week, they will make suggestions on how to best raise the 473-tonne ship without spilling the 18,000 litres of oil and fuel still on board, and how to ensure any sensitive data does not fall into the wrong hands. The costs of raising the ship will fall to its owner, Lynch’s widow, as required by Italian maritime law.
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