A James Bond-esque mission to recover highly sensitive secret files held in safes aboard the sunken super-yacht Bayesian was reportedly carried out by UK intelligence service MI6 before Italian divers could get to them.
The top secret documents related to yacht owner Mike Lynch’s Darktrace cybersecurity company, which has contracts with UK, US and Israeli intelligence agencies, according to a report in the Italian press.
It is not associated with Autonomy, the company he sold to compluting giant Hewlett Packard for $11 billion in 2011.
Sources close to the Italian investigation claimed British MI6 agents removed sensitive computer equipment and data belonging to Lynch — one of seven people killed in the sea tragedy last August — from the shipwreck, before the Italian authorities started to send divers to recover it this week.
The pre-emptive action — reportedly unauthorized by Italian authorities — saw the removal of computers, hard drives and encrypted devices from the vessel in a real-life mission reminiscent of Bond, the fictional British super spy.
The Bayesian is currently 50 meters (164 feet) below the surface off the coast of Porticello, according to Tiscali, a news site founded by prominent Italian politician Renato Soru, which broke the story.
Shipwreck survivors previously told prosecutors that Lynch — a tech tycoon dubbed the British Steve Jobs — “did not trust cloud services” and always kept data drives in a secure compartment of the yacht wherever he sailed.
The Bayesian was believed to contain the trove of top-secret documents and confidential data on foreign governments held in the ship’s hull in a series of waterproof safes.
Lynch was a key figure in Western intelligence circles who served as an adviser to two British prime ministers on science, technology and cyber security. Darktrace maintained ties with MI5, MI6 — also known as the Secret Intelligence Service — US, and Israeli intelligence agencies, accroding to Tiscali.
Italian prosecutors had ordered heightened security around the sunken boat to protect the sensitive information shortly after it sank on Aug. 19, sources previously told CNN.
However, it’s now believed the MI6 agents had already moved in and got the data out before their Italian counterparts had been deployed.
Among the loot was two super-encrypted hard drives that hold highly classified information, including passcodes tied to the intelligence services, an official involved in the salvage plans told the network.
Marine salvage experts started a $30 million dollar operation — which will be bankrolled by the Bayesian’s insurer — to recover the wreck earlier this month.
Tragedy struck again on Friday after it was anounced a 39-year-old Dutch diver who was part of the rescue operation had died underwater while working on the operation to bring the ship’s hull to the surface, the BBC reported.
There were 10 crew members and 12 guests onboard the “unsinkable” ship which rapidly plunged to the bottom of the sea on the night of August 19, 2024, during a freak storm.
Human error as well as the violent storm contributed to the sinking of the $37 million luxury craft, which took less than 16 minutes, according to authorities.
Three crew members of the Bayesian are officially under investigation for crimes including negligence, recklessness and failing to save the ship from an oncoming storm, according to Italian prosecutors.
However, no criminal charges will be formally made until the vessel has been raised and its hull investigated, according to police. Manslaughter charges also remain on the table, prosecutors have previously warned.
Those killed in the wreck were Lynch — who was hosting the group to celebrate his acquittal in a multibillion-dollar fraud trial that had taken place in San Francisco related to the sale of Autonomy — his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, Manhattan lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda, Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy, and the ship’s chef, Ricardo Thomas.
One of the survivors was Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who controls the company that owns the British-flagged vessel.
