Italian Firefighters scuba divers bring ashore in a green bag the body of one of the victims of the UK flag vessel Bayesian on Wednesday. The sail yacht was hit by a violent sudden storm and sunk early Monday, while at anchor off the Sicilian village of Porticello near Palermo, in southern Italy. Salvatore Cavalli/Associated Press

ROME – The body of British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch has been recovered from the wreckage of a sunken yacht off Sicily’s coast, an Italian government official said Thursday, speaking on the condition of anonymity in keeping with protocol.

The British-flagged Bayesian was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew members roughly half a mile from the Sicilian fishing village of Porticello when it encountered what authorities called a “violent storm” at about 4 a.m. Monday. Fifteen people were rescued shortly after the sinking and the body of the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered during initial search efforts.

Six people – including Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah – were missing in the days after the sinking. Four bodies were pulled from the wreckage on Wednesday, and the Italian official said Lynch’s body was taken out of the water and identified on Thursday.

As of Thursday, only Lynch’s daughter was still missing.

Italian authorities have yet to publicly verify the identity of the fifth body recovered.

Authorities identified four bodies pulled from the sunken wreckage Wednesday. An Italian coast guard official, Vincenzo Zagarola, said the four bodies brought ashore by divers were identified as those of two couples: Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and charity trustee Judy Bloomer and attorney Chris Morvillo and jeweler Neda Morvillo.

Lynch, 59, is best known for founding the tech venture capital firm Invoke Capital and co-founding the tech firms Autonomy and Darktrace. He sold Autonomy, which was once England’s biggest software company, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for more than $11 billion. He was subsequently accused of overvaluing the company and was charged in the United States with fraud. He was acquitted during a trial in San Francisco in June after a decade-long legal battle.

Many of the guests on the yacht had business or legal ties to Lynch: Chris Morvillo was a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance in New York and represented Lynch in the concluded legal battle. The voyage on the Bayesian was intended to be a celebration of Lynch’s victory, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported.

Tech entrepreneur and investor Brent Hoberman, who identified himself as Lynch’s longtime friend, told Sky News Thursday that his friends and family were waiting for a “miracle” during the search, calling him a “titan and a figurehead” of the U.K. tech industry. Hoberman said Lynch had spent the last decade “defending his name” in the courts and that his death so soon after his legal victory was “unbelievably tragic.”

The 183-foot yacht was owned by a company controlled by Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who was one of those rescued.

Divers from the Italian Coast Guard have been undertaking daily recovery efforts since Monday, but the position of the yacht and the narrow passages of the cluttered wreck have complicated the process, they said.

The violent weather appeared to have caught many by surprise. Zagarola, the Coast Guard official, said that they had expected only “strong gusts” on the day of the sinking and that no weather warnings had been issued.