Samuel Montgomery
17 September 2024 6:07pm
Italian navy divers are reportedly racing to retrieve Mike Lynch’s personal hard drives from the wreck of the Bayesian, amid speculation they contain material of interest to intelligence services.
Seven people, including the British tech entrepreneur and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, died when the superyacht sank in bad weather off the coast of Sicily last month.
Investigators from Palermo said that no personal items had yet been recovered from the shipwreck, but Italian special forces divers have brought up potentially crucial video equipment which could explain how the Bayesian sank.
The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that Mr Lynch kept two encrypted hard drives in a safe because he did not trust the cloud with controversial documents.
The Italian media outlet claimed that the tech entrepreneur counted MI5, the US National Security Agency and the Israeli secret service as clients, heightening the interest in his personal hard drives.
Sources close to Mr Lynch’s family downplayed the claims, suggesting there was no evidence he had access to intelligence material.
Darktrace, the cybersecurity company that he co-founded, employed many ex-intelligence officers, which has prompted speculation that the company still held some ties to spying agencies.
Mr Lynch founded Darktrace with Stephen Huxter, who had been a high-ranking official in MI5’s cyber defence team, and later bolstered its advisory board with Jonathan Evans, the former head of MI5, and Andrew France, a GCHQ veteran.
Mr Lynch’s company also hired Jim Penrose, who had previously worked for the National Security Agency in the US, and Dave Palmer, who worked at MI5 and GCHQ.
However, Mr Lynch had not been involved in running the business for several years.
The tech entrepreneur’s first business endeavour, the fingerprint recognition company Cambridge Neurodynamics, did hold contracts with the UK intelligence agencies.
Speaking to Wired magazine in 2002, Mr Lynch said: “They have the most interesting problems.”
A big James Bond fan, the tech entrepreneur named conference rooms in his company’s headquarters after villains such as Dr No and Goldfinger.
He even installed a fish tank full of piranhas in the reception of tech company Autonomy, the subject of fraud charges of which he was cleared in San Francisco, as an ode to You Only Live Twice.
The search of Bayesian continues after six divers, from an Italian navy unit akin to Britain’s Special Boat Service, recovered video surveillance systems, computers and hard drives which will be sent to specialised labs, a source close to the investigation told Reuters.
It is hoped that, if the equipment was recovered intact, it may help investigators find out what happened on the night of the sinking.
La Repubblica reported that the only hard drives brought to the surface so far are part of the ship’s own IT equipment.
It has been suggested that the yacht was hit by a meteorological phenomenon known as a downburst.
Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived the disaster after being rescued by a nearby yacht.
The other victims of the Aug 19 tragedy were Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s Antiguan-Canadian chef; Jonathan Bloomer, the Morgan Stanley International bank chairman, and his wife, Judy; and Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife, Neda.
The Bayesian will be raised from its depth of 165ft and brought to shore as part of the investigation into how it sank off the fishing town of Porticello.
James Cutfield, 51, the New Zealand skipper of the Bayesian, is under investigation for multiple manslaughter and causing a deadly shipwreck, along with two British crew members: Tim Parker Eaton, 56, and Matthew Griffiths, 22.
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