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Mike Lynch, a controversial British tech tycoon recently acquitted of fraud in the US, is missing after a superyacht he was on sank off the coast of Sicily, according to reports.
The 56-meter superyacht named "Bayesian" sank early Monday close to Porticello, Palermo, during bad weather.
The area was hit by a strong storm and tornado about an hour before the boat sank, according to a statement by the City Council of Bagheria cited by CNBC News.
Of the 12 guests and 10 crew who were on board, one person is dead, and six others — including Lynch — are missing, The Associated Press said.
Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, is also among the missing, The Times reported, citing Italian officials. Bloomer is a longtime friend of Lynch and testified on his behalf during Lynch's US fraud trial earlier this year.
Lynch's daughter Hannah, believed to be 18 years old, is also among those missing in the wreck, the BBC reported, citing the director general of Sicily's civil protection agency, Salvatore Cocina.
Lynch's attorney, Christopher Morvillo, and Morvillo's wife are also among the missing, a colleague of Morvillo's told Business Insider.
Gary Lincenberg, an attorney who represented Lynch's codefendant, Stephen Chamberlain, in the high-profile fraud case in which both men were acquitted, said Morvillo and his wife "are presumed to be passed away" after the yacht went down near Sicily.
Lincenberg said he found out the news about Morvillo shortly after he learned that Chamberlain was killed after being struck by a car while jogging on Saturday.
"In the course of 48 hours, I can't process what has happened, but both of our clients, as well as Chris and his wife, are gone," Lincenberg told Business Insider.
Authorities haven't confirmed whether the missing people have died.
The remaining 15 people on board, including Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, have been rescued, the BBC reported.
Another passenger who was rescued, Charlotte Emsley, described how she kept her 1-year-old child alive by holding her head above the water.
"I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning," she told reporters at la Repubblica, an Italian news outlet, according to a translation by the BBC.
"It was all dark. In the water, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I screamed for help, but all I could hear around me was the screams of others," Emsley told the outlet.
Divers saw "corpses through the portholes" of the wreck during rescue efforts, said Salvo Cocina, the head of the Civil Protection of Sicily, Sky News reported.
Divers found a man's body at a depth of 50 meters. Local media suggested it belonged to the vessel's chef. Business Insider could not verify the claims.
The superyacht is registered in the Isle of Man.
According to Reuters, the captain of a nearby boat and the owner of the Bayesian are also among those missing.
A local fire department told CNBC News that "divers, a motorboat, and a helicopter," were helping with the search.
But Italian officials are baffled that they haven't found the missing passengers by now.
"We've been searching all day with helicopters and boats, we've found nothing. That wouldn't make sense, in this conditions we should have found something by now," Francesco Venuto, a spokesperson for Sicily's civil protection agency, told Sky News, adding that they "must be there [in the boat]."
Lynch, the founder of the British software company Autonomy, was acquitted of multibillion-dollar fraud charges by a San Francisco jury in June.
He was first extradited to the US last year over accusations that he artificially inflated the value of Autonomy to defraud Hewlett Packard, which purchased the company in 2011 for $11 billion.
In November 2012, HP announced an $8.8 billion writedown related to the Autonomy acquisition, saying $5 billion of that was based on "accounting irregularities" that led HP to massively overpay for Autonomy.
Lynch, a former UK government advisor, always maintained his innocence. His lawyers called the charges a "travesty of justice" that "had no place in a US court."
Bloomer, who is also among the missing, led Autonomy's audit committee and provided critical testimony on Lynch's behalf during the trial, telling the court that Lynch was not heavily involved in the company's accounting.
In an interview following his acquittal, published late last month, Lynch told The Times that he was excited for his shot at a second life after fearing he would die in prison if he was convicted.
"I'd had to say goodbye to everything and everyone, because I didn't know if I'd ever be coming back," Lynch told the outlet. "If this had gone the wrong way, it would have been the end of life as I have known it in any sense."
Lynch also told the Times his acquittal had made him more spiritual, leading him to begin considering what he called "Saint Peter questions."
"So you arrive at the Pearly Gates before being dispatched to the elevator down to the basement, and you say to Saint Peter, 'You know, just before I go, what was that all about? What was that?'" Lynch told the outlet.
The tech tycoon, who faced more than 20 years in prison if convicted, had been preparing to set up a campaign to help wrongly accused Britons in the US, according to The Telegraph.
Representatives for Mike Lynch did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
August 19, 2024 — Update: This story has been updated to include reporting that Morgan Stanley International Chair Jonathan Bloomer is among the missing.
