A man who threw away a hard drive containing $500 million in Bitcoin sues local government to search landfill.
During the past decade, a Welsh man has been requesting his local government to allow him to inspect the contents of the city’s landfill. James Howells, a 39-year-old resident of Newport, has been desperately seeking permission since 2013 when he accidentally threw away a hard drive containing 7,500 Bitcoin. Due to the increase in the cryptocurrency’s value over the past ten years, those assets would be worth over half a billion dollars today. Unfortunately for Howells, the Newport City Council has repeatedly denied his request, citing violations of regulations and potential environmental harm.
### Legal Action and Next Steps
In an effort to compel the local government to fulfill his wishes, Howells has sued the council, seeking £495,314,800 in damages, as reported by Wales Online. This amount is roughly equivalent to what he would have earned if he had kept the hard drive with the Bitcoins. Howells explained to the media that he doesn’t actually want that money from the council, but rather seeks to force them to allow the excavation. This is just the latest step in an increasingly desperate (and presumably costly) effort to recover the hard drive. The Register mentioned that over the past ten years, Howells “quit his IT job and assembled a team of investors,” who would receive the majority of the assets if they find the hard drive. Meanwhile, Howells plans to keep around 30% of its value. Gizmodo reached out to the Newport City Council for comments and will update the story if they receive a response.
Howells has claimed that he would share a percentage of the hard drive’s profits with the local community if he could retrieve it. He has made rather comical statements about the missed opportunity that Newport lawmakers are passing up by refusing to allow him to excavate the landfill. “If they had spoken to me in 2013, this place would look like Las Vegas now,” he said. “Newport would look like Dubai. That’s the opportunity they’ve missed.” It is unclear if the local residents of Newport, whose city is already considered a fairly lively metropolitan community, really want their surroundings to resemble Las Vegas.
In a statement provided to The Register, the council said, “We have told Mr. Howells on a number of occasions that the excavation is not possible under our environmental permit and that such works would have a significant negative environmental impact on the surrounding area.” They added, “The council is the only authorized body to carry out operations on the site.”
It is worth considering how much money Howells has been spending on this quixotic quest. After all, the hard drive in question could very well be A) lost forever and/or B) completely damaged and unusable. If that’s the case, Howells has effectively wasted years of his life and a substantial amount of money for nothing. At the same time, if Howells somehow manages to get his hands on his beloved hard drive, and his crypto assets are in a recoverable format, he would never have to work again, which explains his determination in this matter.
