Italian authorities have confirmed a request for additional security around the wreck of the luxury yacht Bayesian, which sank in August killing seven, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, after fears were raised that material in watertight safes onboard could be of interest to foreign governments.
Italian prosecutors fear that would-be thieves might try to reach the wreckage in order to loot expensive jewelry and other valuable objects onboard, including intelligence data, CNN reported, citing unnamed sources.
The authorities are reportedly concerned that two super-encrypted hard drives in the sunken yacht’s watertight safes could fall into the wrong hands.
The vessel sank during a violent storm off the coast of Sicily on 19 August, claiming the lives of seven of the 22 passengers and crew onboard, including Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter.
Italian authorities confirmed to the cable news outlet that the hard drives could be of interest to foreign governments, including Russia and China, and they had requested that the vessel be guarded closely with surface and underwater surveillance.
“A formal request has been accepted and implemented for additional security of the wreckage until it can be raised,” Francesco Venuto of the Sicilian civil protection agency told CNN.
The concerns focus on hard drives that Lynch reportedly kept with him. Survivors reportedly told Italian prosecutors that Lynch “did not trust [internet] cloud services” and kept his data with him.
Lynch was believed to have connections to British, American and other intelligence services and had sold Darktrace, a cybersecurity artificial intelligence company he founded, to US billionaire Orlando Bravo, co-founder and managing partner of Chicago-based Thoma Bravo, in a $5bn deal earlier this year.
The Cambridge-based company was co-founded in 2013 by Stephen Huxter, a high-ranking figure in MI5’s cyber defense team, who became a managing director at Darktrace.
Huxter hired Andrew France, a 30-year veteran of GCHQ, the British intelligence and security agency, as the company’s chief executive. Former MI5 head Jonathan Evans also sat on Darktrace’s board, along with Jim Penrose, a 17-year veteran of the US National Security Agency, among others in the security field, according to Politico.
Lynch’s previous company, Autonomy, which he sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2011, was also connected to UK and US government agencies and reportedly specialized in “advanced computer eavesdropping systems”.
The risk that Lynch’s hard drives holding highly classified information, including passcodes and other sensitive data, could fall into the hands of foreign actors was raised by an official involved in the salvage plans, who asked not to be named, according to CNN.
Divers have been searching the Bayesian with remote cameras before it is raised. They are expected to complete surveys of the wreck within the next week.
Italian prosecutors have opened up a criminal investigation into the sinking of the 184-foot yacht, which came as Lynch, family members, his lawyer and his banker were celebrating his acquittal in June on fraud charges related to Autonomy’s $11bn sale to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
Hewlett-Packard recently said it planned to pursue a $4bn civil litigation against Lynch’s estate, saying the move was “in the best interest of shareholders”, in a 2022 UK civil court judgment over the acquisition.
The sinking of the Bayesian in a freak storm claimed the lives of Lynch, 59; his daughter, Hannah, 18; American attorney Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda; British banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and the yacht’s onboard chef, Recaldo Thomas.
Local prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio told CNN that no personal effects, including computers, jewelry or Lynch’s hard drives, had yet been recovered from the vessel, though equipment related to the navigation system was removed to help determine why the yacht sank within minutes of the storm striking when it was designed to weather such a situation and other nearby vessels remained afloat.
