Bayesian superyacht sinking: Safes on tycoon Mike Lynch’s sunken boat ‘may contain intelligence service data’
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.
Key points
Bayesian yacht may contain safes with confidential intelligence data, sources say
Mike Lynch had ties to spy chiefs and intelligence agencies
Former captain describes horror of those trapped in cabins
Two encrypted hard drives of Mike Lynch remain 49m underwater locked in safe - report
Professor fears more deaths by ‘medicanes’ after Bayesian tragedy
Boatbuilder ‘wants £186 million for damage to the yacht', reports say
09:43 , Alex Croft
The company that built the Bayesian yacht appeared to intend to sue the boat’s crew and Mike Lynch’s widow, court papers showed.
The Italian Sea Group (TISG) filed papers in a Sicilian court, arguing the tragic incident may have caused reputational damage and loss of earnings, The Times report.
It planned on suing the crew and Mike Lynch’s widow, Angela, for £186 million.
However, after reports emerged of the company lawyer, Tommaso Bertuccelli, pursuing the claim, TISG strongly denied they were pursuing court action.
It said: “The Italian Sea Group … strongly denies the claims published in La Nazione regarding a legal action following the Bayesian tragedy. Although TISG has given a generic mandate to the lawyers named in the article, no legal representative of the company has examined, signed or authorised any writ of summons.”
Seven key unanswered questions around the sinking of the Bayesian
09:27 , Alex Croft
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.
Barney Davis reports here:
The key unanswered questions around the tragic sinking of the Bayesian
Mike Lynch had ties to spy chiefs and intelligence agencies
08:00 , Alex Croft
A report has emerged classified intelligence information possibly sitting 50 metres deep in the Bayesian superyacht.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died in the sunken yacht, was known to have links with intelligence services around the world, including British and American.
This link partly came from his cybersecurity firm Darktrace, which he founded in 2011 in partnership with former UK intelligence officials, Politico report.
Co-founder Stephen Huxter became managing director of the company. He previously ranked highly in MI5’s cyber defense team.
Darktrace is used to fight off cyberattacks, by learning the behavioural patterns of actors in an organisation and detecting any unusual activity.
Former MI5 chief Jonathan Evans sat on the company onboard, and Jim Penrose, who worked on the US National Security Agency, led the company’s operation in America.
A number of other intelligence figures were also involved. with Darktrace.
Lynch also had other ventures which were linked with spy agencies. Cambridge Neurodynamics, a company specialising in fingerprint recognition for computers, was contracted by UK intelligence services.
Bayesian yacht may contain safes with confidential intelligence data, sources say
07:01 , Alex Croft
Divers have requested heightened security after finding watertight safes which may contain highly classified information, sources told CNN.
Authorities confirmed that they are seeking heightened security, with sources suggesting confidential intelligence information on the boat may be of interest to Russia and China.
An official working with the team salvaging the boat said the vessel is believed to contain watertight safes with two super-encrypted hard drives, CNN reports.
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.”
What happens now weeks after tragic sinking?
06:06 , Barney Davis
Prosecutors are investigating the captain, New Zealander James Cutfield, and two crew members for possible responsibility in connection with the sinking.
Mr Cutfield is under investigation for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges. Tim Parker Eaton — the engineer who was in charge of securing the yacht’s engine room — and sailor Matthew Griffith — who was on watch duty on the night of the disaster — are now under investigation for the same possible charges, their lawyer said.
Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio, who is heading the investigation, has said his team will consider each possible element of responsibility including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision and the yacht’s manufacturer.
Investigators are focusing on how a sailing vessel deemed “unsinkable” by its manufacturer, Italian shipyard Perini Navi, sank while a nearby sailboat remained largely unscathed. They added raising the Bayesian and examining the yacht for evidence would provide key elements to the investigation.
Maritime director of western Sicily, Rear Admiral Raffaele Macauda of the coastguard, could not confirm how long it would take to retrieve the shipwreck of the sunken yacht, adding recovering the fuel tanks was a “priority for us because it has environmental knock-on effects”.
Work to recover the superyacht begins with 200m red zone established off Porticello
05:05 , Barney Davis
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.”
Autopsies reveal cause of death of US lawyer and wife onboard Mike Lynch’s superyacht
04:04 , Alex Croft
Autopsies have been carried out on a couple who drowned on Mike Lynch’s superyacht when it sank off the coast of Sicily last month.
Seven lives were lost when the British-flagged boat, called the Bayesian, went down in a freak storm while anchored near the Sicilian capital of Palermo on 19 August.
Autopsies reveal cause of death of US lawyer and wife onboard Mike Lynch’s superyacht
Bodies flown back to UK on private planes - report
03:07 , Barney Davis
The bodies of Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, and the other victims of the Bayesian disaster have been flown back to their families after their post-mortems, according to reports.
They were repatriated on private planes, with their private funerals expected to be held over the coming days, Italian media reports.
The British tech tycoon’s boat had been moored near the port of Porticello on 19 August when it sank during the early hours of the morning. It is now lying 50m below the surface.
Among those killed were Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, who had been due to begin studying at Oxford University in September, as well as four other family friends and associates.
Jonathan Bloomer, the international chairman of Morgan Stanley Bank; his wife Judith, a psychotherapist; Christopher Morvillo, a US lawyer; and his wife Neda, a jewellery designer also died in the sinking.
Also killed was the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, whose body was recovered floating near the wreckage.
Italian navy recover video equipment
02:03 , Alex Croft
Italian Navy divers have recovered video surveillance equipment from the wreckage of billionaire Mike Lynch’s Bayesian superyacht that could explain how it sank.
The British tech tycoon’s boat had been moored near the port of Porticello on 19 August when it sank during the early hours of the morning. It is now lying 50m below the surface.
Among those killed were Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, who had been due to begin studying at Oxford University in September, as well as four other family friends and associates.
Mike Lynch and daughter Hannah were ‘part of a united, vibrant, loving family’
01:04 , Barney Davis
Family friends of Mike and Hannah Lynch have said the father and daughter were part of a “united, vibrant, loving family” – with the teenager remembered as a “diamond in a sea of stars” and the tech mogul as a brilliant storyteller.
Mr Lynch was the creator of software giant Autonomy and had been cleared in June of carrying out a massive fraud related to its 11 billion dollar (£8.64 billion) sale to US company Hewlett Packard.
His daughter Hannah had recently finished her A-levels and was due to study at Oxford University.
Sasha Murray, chief stewardess of the Bayesian, said: “Those who knew her will know that Hannah was a diamond in a sea of stars. Bright, beautiful and always shining.
“What most people may not have seen was the extraordinarily strong, deep and loving relationship she shared with her parents, whom she adored more than anything.
“While swimming with them she often said, if anything ever happened she would save them.
“I have no doubt that the Irish, Latina fire that burns in her soul kept that spirited determination alive.”
It is understood Ms Murray was rescued after disaster struck the yacht.
HP looking to recoup £4billion from Mike Lynch’s estate despite Bayesian tragedy
Sunday 22 September 2024 00:01 , Alex Croft
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is making the “difficult decision” to pursue Mike Lynch’s estate for £4billion in the interests of shareholders despite the tech billionaire being killed along with his daughter on the Bayesian superyacht.
Antonio Neri, the former engineer turned chief executive at HPE, told the Financial Times: “Obviously my job as a representative of shareholders is to make the difficult decisions.
“These are difficult decisions. But in the end, we are making decisions in the best interest of shareholders.”
Mike Lynch had been celebrating his acquittal from criminal charges on the superyacht when it overturned in a freak storm.
But HPE intends to pursue damages around an earlier UK civil trial in 2022 which found in favor of HPE’s claim that Lynch and ex-CFO Sushovan Hussain had inflated the apparent value of Autonomy during the acquisition.
Professor fears more deaths by ‘medicanes’ after Bayesian tragedy
Saturday 21 September 2024 23:06 , Alex Croft
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.”
Mike Lynch net worth: How the billionaire made his money
Saturday 21 September 2024 22:02 , Barney Davis
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
Bayesian yacht may contain safes with confidential intelligence data, sources say
Saturday 21 September 2024 21:02 , Alex Croft
Divers have requested heightened security after finding watertight safes which may contain highly classified information, sources told CNN.
Authorities confirmed that they are seeking heightened security, with sources suggesting confidential intelligence information on the boat may be of interest to Russia and China.
An official working with the team salvaging the boat said the vessel is believed to contain watertight safes with two super-encrypted hard drives, CNN reports.
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.”
Bayesian captain said to be ‘living darkest days of his life’
Saturday 21 September 2024 20:05 , Barney Davis
Three crew members including the yacht’s captain are under investigation, with plans being discussed to raise the yacht from the ocean bed to assist enquiries.
Sources close to New Zealander James Cutfield, 51, the captain, told the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera that he is living through the darkest days of his life.
Among those killed were Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, who had been due to begin studying at Oxford University in September, the yacht’s chef and four other family friends and associates.
Mike Lynch had ties to spy chiefs and intelligence agencies
Saturday 21 September 2024 19:02 , Alex Croft
A report has emerged classified intelligence information possibly sitting 50 metres deep in the Bayesian superyacht.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died in the sunken yacht, was known to have links with intelligence services around the world, including British and American.
This link partly came from his cybersecurity firm Darktrace, which he founded in 2011 in partnership with former UK intelligence officials, Politico report.
Co-founder Stephen Huxter became managing director of the company. He previously ranked highly in MI5’s cyber defense team.
Darktrace is used to fight off cyberattacks, by learning the behavioural patterns of actors in an organisation and detecting any unusual activity.
Former MI5 chief Jonathan Evans sat on the company onboard, and Jim Penrose, who worked on the US National Security Agency, led the company’s operation in America.
A number of other intelligence figures were also involved. with Darktrace.
Lynch also had other ventures which were linked with spy agencies. Cambridge Neurodynamics, a company specialising in fingerprint recognition for computers, was contracted by UK intelligence services.
Bodies of Mike Lynch and daughter Hannah flown back to families after Bayesian superyacht sinking
Saturday 21 September 2024 18:30 , Barney Davis
Bodies of Mike Lynch and daughter Hannah flown back to families after Bayesian superyacht sinking
The bodies of those who died after the billionaire Mike Lynch’s Bayesian superyacht sunk off the coast of Sicily have been flown back to their families by private jet.
Italian publication Giornale di Sicilia reported post-mortem examinations were completed at a Palermo hospital and the bodies have now been returned.
My colleague Tom Watling reports:
Bodies of Mike Lynch and daughter flown back to UK after Bayesian tragedy
Former captain says surviving crewmembers all have PTSD from sinking
Saturday 21 September 2024 18:00 , Alex Croft
The former captain of the Bayesian superyacht says he has spoken to all of the surviving crew to hear their account of the sinking.
Stephen Edwards said all the crew members who were on deck rescued as many passengers as they could but that heading down towards the flooded lower parts of the yacht “would have meant certain death”.
The former captain told The Telegraph: “They are not doing very well”
“The dominant feeling is still one of shock from the event. They are dealing with what happened, how it happened and how quickly it happened.”
Four victims found with carbon dioxide in lungs
Saturday 21 September 2024 17:29 , Alex Croft
Tech billionaire Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, and five other people died when the Bayesian went down in a downburst, which is similar to a small tornado.
Chef Recaldo Thomas, Jonathan Bloomer, the Morgan Stanley International bank chairman, his wife Judy, and Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife Neda, were the other victims of the August 19 tragedy.
Four of the victims are feared to have suffocated to death in air bubbles that filled with carbon dioxide, according to their autopsies raising the frightening possibility that they may have been conscious after the yacht sank, according to Italian news outlet La Republica.
Fifteen people, including Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, survived when they were rescued by a nearby yacht.
The deadly waterspouts thought to have caused Sicily boat tragedy
Saturday 21 September 2024 16:55 , Alex Croft
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.
Saturday 21 September 2024 16:23 , Alex Croft
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
Work to recover the superyacht begins with 200m red zone established off Porticello
Saturday 21 September 2024 15:51 , Alex Croft
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.”
Mike Lynch’s co-defendant died from head injury after being hit by car days before yacht sinking
Saturday 21 September 2024 15:20 , Alex Croft
Mike Lynch’s co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain died in hospital three days after being hit by a car on a country road, an inquest heard.
The 52-year-old, from Longstanton in south Cambridgeshire, was struck by a blue Vauxhall Corsa travelling between Stretham and Wicken on the A1123 at about 10.10am on 17 August.
Mr Chamberlain, a former vice president of finance at Mike Lynch’s software firm Autonomy, had been out running at the time, his lawyer Gary Lincenberg said.
Coroner Caroline Jones told the inquest in Alconbury that his medical cause of death was recorded as “traumatic head injury”.
Investigators hope to recover data on sinking of Bayesian
Saturday 21 September 2024 14:50 , Barney Davis
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.
Darktrace set to leave London Stock Exchange at end of September
Saturday 21 September 2024 14:18 , Alex Croft
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.
‘Mike Lynch files may be target for hostile spy agencies’
Saturday 21 September 2024 13:46 , Alex Croft
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.
Mike Lynch had ties to spy chiefs and intelligence agencies
Saturday 21 September 2024 13:14 , Alex Croft
A report has emerged classified intelligence information possibly sitting 50 metres deep in the Bayesian superyacht.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died in the sunken yacht, was known to have links with intelligence services around the world, including British and American.
This link partly came from his cybersecurity firm Darktrace, which he founded in 2011 in partnership with former UK intelligence officials, Politico report.
Co-founder Stephen Huxter became managing director of the company. He previously ranked highly in MI5’s cyber defense team.
Darktrace is used to fight off cyberattacks, by learning the behavioural patterns of actors in an organisation and detecting any unusual activity.
Former MI5 chief Jonathan Evans sat on the company onboard, and Jim Penrose, who worked on the US National Security Agency, led the company’s operation in America.
A number of other intelligence figures were also involved. with Darktrace.
Lynch also had other ventures which were linked with spy agencies. Cambridge Neurodynamics, a company specialising in fingerprint recognition for computers, was contracted by UK intelligence services.
Bayesian yacht may contain safes with confidential intelligence data, sources say
Saturday 21 September 2024 12:56 , Alex Croft
Divers have requested heightened security after finding watertight safes which may contain highly classified information, sources told CNN.
Authorities confirmed that they are seeking heightened security, with sources suggesting confidential intelligence information on the boat may be of interest to Russia and China.
An official working with the team salvaging the boat said the vessel is believed to contain watertight safes with two super-encrypted hard drives, CNN reports.
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.”
Bayesian captain said to be ‘living darkest days of his life'
Saturday 21 September 2024 06:15 , Barney Davis
Three crew members including the yacht’s captain are under investigation, with plans being discussed to raise the yacht from the ocean bed to assist enquiries.
Sources close to New Zealander James Cutfield, 51, the captain, told the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera that he is living through the darkest days of his life.
Among those killed were Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, who had been due to begin studying at Oxford University in September, the yacht’s chef and four other family friends and associates.
Mike Lynch net worth: How the billionaire made his money
Saturday 21 September 2024 04:00 , Barney Davis
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
Former captain claims Mike Lynch’s wife was always concerned about boat safety
Saturday 21 September 2024 02:00 , Barney Davis
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.”
Friday 20 September 2024 23:31 , Barney Davis
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’
Friday 20 September 2024 23:00 , Barney Davis
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
Friday 20 September 2024 21:00 , Barney Davis
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
Friday 20 September 2024 19:00 , Barney Davis
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
Friday 20 September 2024 17:00 , Barney Davis
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
Friday 20 September 2024 15:00 , Barney Davis
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
Work to recover the superyacht begins with 200m red zone established off Porticello
Friday 20 September 2024 13:00 , Barney Davis
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
Friday 20 September 2024 12:30 , Barney Davis
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.
Bodies of Mike Lynch and daughter Hannah flown back to families after Bayesian superyacht sinking
Friday 20 September 2024 11:30 , Barney Davis
The bodies of those who died after the billionaire Mike Lynch’s Bayesian superyacht sunk off the coast of Sicily have been flown back to their families by private jet.
Italian publication Giornale di Sicilia reported post-mortem examinations were completed at a Palermo hospital and the bodies have now been returned.
My colleague Tom Watling reports:
Bodies of Mike Lynch and daughter flown back to UK after Bayesian tragedy
Four victims found with carbon dioxide in lungs
Friday 20 September 2024 08:30 , Barney Davis
Tech billionaire Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, and five other people died when the Bayesian went down in a downburst, which is similar to a small tornado.
Chef Recaldo Thomas, Jonathan Bloomer, the Morgan Stanley International bank chairman, his wife Judy, and Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife Neda, were the other victims of the August 19 tragedy.
Four of the victims are feared to have suffocated to death in air bubbles that filled with carbon dioxide, according to their autopsies raising the frightening possibility that they may have been conscious after the yacht sank, according to Italian news outlet La Republica.
Fifteen people, including Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, survived when they were rescued by a nearby yacht.
Former captain says surviving crewmembers all have PTSD from sinking
Thursday 19 September 2024 18:30 , Barney Davis
The former captain of the Bayesian superyacht says he has spoken to all of the surviving crew to hear their account of the sinking.
Stephen Edwards said all the crew members who were on deck rescued as many passengers as they could but that heading down towards the flooded lower parts of the yacht “would have meant certain death”.
The former captain told The Telegraph: “They are not doing very well”
“The dominant feeling is still one of shock from the event. They are dealing with what happened, how it happened and how quickly it happened.”
