Bayesian superyacht sinking: Safes on tycoon Mike Lynch’s sunken boat ‘may contain intelligence service data’
Italian prosecutors continue their investigation after divers recovered video equipment from the luxury yacht
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Your support makes all the difference.Divers searching British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s sunken superyacht off Sicily have found safes holding potentially sensitive intelligence data, sources have claimed.
Local law enforcement reportedly now fear that foreign governments such as China and Russia may become interested in the boat - and have asked for extra surveillance to protect it, CNN reports.
Through Lynch’s companies, he was associated with multiple intelligence services - including British and American - particularly through his cyber security company, Darktrace.
The Bayesian boat is believed to have watertight safes with two super-encrypted hard drives containing confidential intelligence information, an official within the recovery team told the US new outlet.
Lying at a 50-metre depth, the wreckage is expected to be raised in the following weeks as part of a criminal investigation into its sinking on 19 August.
Francesco Venuto, of the Sicilian Civil Protection Agency, told CNN: “A formal request has been accepted and implemented for additional security of the wreckage until it can be raised.”
Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among eight people to die when the yacht sank last month.
Mike Lynch net worth: How the billionaire made his money
Mike Lynch was frequently described as the Bill Gates of Britain for founding Autonomy – one of the biggest software firms on the planet
Mike Lynch net worth: How the billionaire made his money
Mike Lynch was frequently described as the Bill Gates of Britain for founding Autonomy – one of the biggest software firms on the planet
Former captain claims Mike Lynch’s wife was always concerned about boat safety
The wife of Mike Lynch, 57-year-old Angela Bacares managed to escape to safety after suffering cuts from broken glass as she went to try and save her husband and daughter, according to la Repubblica.
The newspaper said she told doctors that at 4am, the boat had tilted and she and her husband were woken up.
Former captain Stephen Edwards told The Telegraph, Ms Bacares “always wants to know what is happening and what the crew are doing”.
“She is always the first person to come up to the bridge if she hears us scuttling about up there. That could explain why she was saved and Mike wasn’t.”
The “worn out” captain of the Bayesian superyacht that sank off Sicily killing seven including billionaire Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter is not responding to prosecutors’ questions as they pursue manslaughter charges, his lawyer said.
James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, is under investigation for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges and was questioned by the Termini Imerese prosecutors three times.
His lawyer Aldo Mordiglia said of his client: “He just exercised his right to remain silent, probably prosecutors were expecting that.”
Cutfield was among 15 survivors of the sinking on August 19 that killed Mr Lynch, his daughter Hannah and five others.
“The captain exercised his right to remain silent for two fundamental reasons,” lawyer Giovanni Rizzuti told reporters.
“First, he’s very worn out. Second, we were appointed only on Monday and for a thorough and correct defence case we need to acquire a set of data that at the moment we don’t have.”
Being placed under investigation in Italy does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will necessarily follow.
'Mike Lynch files may be target for hostile spy agencies’
Divers are searching the sea floor for Mike Lynch’s high-tech hard drives before they can fall into enemy hands reports La Repubblica - Italy’s second-biggest newspaper.
Sources told the paper the disks held: “the great digital archive of the IT entrepreneur whose clients included the British MI5, the American NSA and the Israeli services”.
The Italian newspaper said the “super drives” are protected by “cutting-edge encryption”.
The Sun reported the drives now could be a target for the hostile spy agencies of Russia, China, and Iran as they seek to steal valuable secrets.
Professor fears more deaths by ‘medicanes’ after Bayesian tragedy
Professor Yoav Yair, Dean of the School of Sustainability at Reichman University in Israel, told the Mirror that storms dubbed ‘medicanes’ - Mediterranean hurricanes - could cause similar sinkings like the Bayesian superyacht.
He said: “It is not a matter of if this (the Bayesian disaster) will happen again, but rather it’s when and where.
“In the last couple of years we have seen medicanes - which are a new phenomena. These are hurricane-like storms that pack a lot of energy, and create flash flooding, torrential rains, lightning, hail and severe sustained winds. The 2023 “Daniel” medicane destroyed Libya and caused over 30,000 deaths there.
“The sea surface temperature has risen globally and in the Med as well, charging the atmosphere with increased fluxes of water vapor, which means a higher potential for massive storms.”
Darktrace set to leave London Stock Exchange at end of September
Darktrace shares are set to stop trading publicly at the end of September, after the company set a timetable for its blockbuster private equity takeover to be completed.
The private equity group Thoma Bravo struck an almost 5.31 billion dollar (£4.3 billion) deal to buy Darktrace, co-founded by Mike Lynch, in April.
It marks one of the biggest take-private deals for a London-listed company in recent years, and will see Darktrace leave the FTSE 100 on October 1.
Founded in 2013, Cambridge-based Darktrace is a cybersecurity firm best known for using artificial intelligence to scan for hacks and data leaks inside IT networks.
The update comes after Poppy Gustafsson stepped down as chief executive earlier in September amid the takeover.
Ms Gustafsson helped to set up the Cambridge-based company in 2013 alongside Autonomy founder Mike Lynch.
Mr Lynch, and his daughter Hannah, were among seven people to die after the Bayesian superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily last month.
Investigators hope to recover data on sinking of Bayesian
Navy divers recovered hard drives of the video surveillance system on board the Bayesian hopefully revealing the final moments before the tragic sinking of the superyacht.
In the engine room there were the hard disks that catalogued the parameters regarding the electric and thermal propulsion.
“We hope to be able to read something from the media”, an investigator told La Repubblica. They added “Unfortunately they are standard models that are not resistant to water and pressure”.
There was no black box on board the 700-tonne sailing vessel that sank in minutes. It was not required to have one, as it was not a commercial cruise ship.
Seven key unanswered questions around the sinking of the Bayesian
With the Bayesian lying on her side 50 metres underneath the now gentle waters of the Mediterranean, mystery still surrounds how the 56-metre superyacht, sank in the typhoon off the port of Porticello.
Remotely controlled underwater vehicles and cave divers are looking to raise the yacht, which experts will examine in the coming days.
The key unanswered questions around the tragic sinking of the Bayesian
With the search continuing of the sunken Bayesian an investigation has been launched to establish what caused the disaster off the coast of Sicily
Work to recover the superyacht begins with 200m red zone established off Porticello
TMC Marine, a company specialising in “planning and executing high-risk maritime operations and investigating and resolving serious maritime incidents and disputes” have arrived in Porticello.
The delicate operation could cost as much as £15 million to raise the Bayesian superyacht will require barges with cranes as the locals complain about the impact.
“When will the recovery be carried out?” one fisherman asked workers according to La Repubblica.
“For us,” added another, “it is better that these operations end as soon as possible.”
He pointed towards a 200m radius which is still forbidden to sail on and is constantly monitored by the coast guard.
“The community is preparing for the feast of the Madonna del Lume,” added a nearby bar worker referencing an upcoming October holiday.
“That day the painting of the Madonna, symbol of the village, will be carried out of the church, passing through the hands of the faithful, and then hundreds of boats will pour into the sea.”
The deadly waterspouts thought to have caused Sicily boat tragedy
In Italy waterspouts can involve winds of up to 200 kilometres (124 miles) per hour, while downbursts can produce gusts of around 150 km per hour.
Statistics show that downbursts are becoming more frequent around the country, which Mercalli said may be connected to global warming.
Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat.
“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” Italian climatologist Luca Mercall said.
“So we can’t say that this is all due to climate change, but we can say that it has an amplifying effect.”
A similar freak storm killed four people, when their tourist boat sank on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy in May last year.
The country’s varied geology makes it prone to floods and landslides, while the fact it is flanked by rapidly warming seas means it is vulnerable to increasingly powerful storms.
