(CNN) – Specialized divers inspecting the wreckage of the $40 million superyacht that sank off Sicily in August, drowning eight people — including British tech magnate Mike Lynch — have called for greater security on the ship, as they There are concerns that sensitive data in its safes could be of interest to foreign governments, multiple sources told CNN.
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, four sources familiar with the matter said. investigation and rescue operation.
Lynch was associated with British, American and other intelligence services through his various companies, 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, also served as an adviser to British Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May on science, technology and cybersecurity during their terms, according to British government and Darktrace records.
The sunken ship, which lies on the sea floor 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 rescue plans, who asked not to be named, told CNN. Specialist divers with remote cameras have searched the ship extensively.
Initially, local law enforcement feared 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 CNN. They are now worried that the remains, which are expected to be recovered in the coming weeks as part of the criminal investigation into the tragedy, will also interest 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 greater security of the remains until they can be removed has been accepted and implemented,” Francesco Venuto of the Sicilian Civil Protection Agency confirmed to CNN.
Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, American lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, British banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, and the chef aboard the yacht, Recaldo Thomas, died when the ship sank in a violent storm in the early hours of the morning.
Preliminary autopsy results suggest the Bloomer and Morvillo couples died from asphyxiation or “dry drowning” when the oxygen in an air bubble in a sleeping cabin was depleted. The autopsy results on Lynch and her daughter were less clear.
The chef, whose body was found outside the boat, 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 a shipwreck. . Everyone has been allowed to leave Italy.
Some of the 15 survivors, of whom nine were crew members and six were passengers, including a one-year-old girl, allegedly told prosecutors that Lynch “didn’t trust cloud services” and always kept hard drives on a secure compartment of the yacht wherever he sailed, a source in the prosecutor’s office told CNN. 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 after the bodies were recovered.
Morvillo represented Lynch when he was acquitted in a U.S. criminal fraud case in June related to Hewlett Packard’s acquisition of his Autonomy software company, and survivors told investigators that the cruise trip It was a celebration of that acquittal, according to assistant prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano. Although Lynch was cleared of any wrongdoing in the US, Hewlett Packard has indicated that it will not abandon its attempt to collect a $4 billion civil settlement 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 his co-defendant in the US fraud case and former chief operating officer of Darktrace, died on August 19, the same day that the Bayesian sank, after being hit by a car while running two days earlier. A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office told CNN that Cutfield told them that Lynch had been aware of Chamberlain’s serious condition and had planned to cut the cruise short to return to the United Kingdom to see his business partner, who was on life support.
The Bayesian sank a few hours before Chamberlain died in the hospital, his lawyer said. Lynch would not have known about the death of his partner, and Chamberlain was in a coma, so he would not have known about the shipwreck, Chamberlain’s lawyer said.
Local prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said no personal effects, including computers, jewelry or Lynch’s hard drives, had been recovered from the ship. However, onboard hard drives and surveillance cameras linked to the yacht’s navigation system have been brought to investigators to determine if there is any usable data that could indicate how the yacht sank just 16 minutes after the storm hit. would be untied. The ship 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 wreckage this week, they will make suggestions on how to best lift the 473-ton ship without spilling the 18,000 liters of oil and fuel still on board, and how to ensure that 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.
