(NewsNation) — Sensitive intelligence documents may be among the wreckage of the Bayesian, the $40 million superyacht that sank off the coast of Sicily in August, CNN sources claim.
A violent storm near the Italian island sunk British tech magnate Mike Lynch’s superyacht on Aug. 19, killing seven of the 22 people on board. Those who passed included Lynch and his teenage daughter, Hannah. His wife, Angela Bacares, survived.
Specialist divers surveying the wreckage of the 56-meter (184-foot) vessel have reportedly asked for more security around it, citing potentially sensitive data locked inside its watertight safes.
CNN’s sources indicate that the documents and passcodes — saved on two super-encrypted hard drives —could “interest foreign governments,” a source involved in the salvage operations told the network.
Lynch, who was a major force in the cyber security and tech realm with his companies Autonomy Corporation, Invoke Capital and Darktrace, had some ties to international intelligence services. The sources say that at least two of those countries are China and Russia.
Italian prosecutors have opened a shipwreck and manslaughter investigation into the disaster, which is expected to involve lifting the vessel from the water.
“A formal request has been accepted and implemented for additional security of the wreckage until it can be raised,” an official with a Sicilian civil protection authority told CNN.