In a desperate bid to recover his lost fortune, a computer expert is planning to purchase an entire landfill in South Wales, where he believes his hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin, worth a staggering $775 million (nearly Rs 6,500 crores), is buried. According to the Guardian, James Howells’ desperate attempt comes after a 12-year search and a recent high court defeat, which denied him permission to search the landfill.
With the council announcing plans to close and cap the site, and even securing permission for a solar farm on part of the land, Howells’ chances of recovering his lost Bitcoin seemed all but lost. However, by buying the landfill, he hopes to gain access to the site and finally retrieve his prized hard drive.
‘It was quite a surprise to hear of the landfill’s closure. It [the council] claimed at the high court that closing the landfill to allow me to search would have a huge detrimental impact on the people of Newport, whilst at the same time they were planning to close the landfill anyway,” he said.
“I expected it would be closed in the coming years because it’s 80/90% full – but didn’t expect its closure so soon. If Newport City Council would be willing, I would potentially be interested in purchasing the landfill site ‘as is’ and have discussed this option with investment partners and it is something that is very much on the table,” he added.
James Howells threw away $750 million of bitcoin accidentally a decade ago and has been trying to recover the hard drive from a landfill ever since. Today, a judge has rejected his latest attempt to search through 110,000 tons of garbage for his digital gold. pic.twitter.com/douIDzDdQO
— Documenting ₿itcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) January 11, 2025
What exactly happened?
James Howell’s multimillion-dollar misfortune began in 2013 when his partner mistakenly threw away a hard drive containing the keys to his Bitcoin wallet. Now buried under 100,000 tonnes of waste in a Newport landfill, the hard drive remains inaccessible despite its growing value.
Halfina Eddy-Evans, the mother of Howells’ two teenage sons, told Daily Mail that nearly a decade ago, she took the hard drive to a landfill in Newport, Wales, as part of a cleanup at Howells’ request. “Yes, I threw away his rubbish. He asked me to,” she explained. “I had no idea what was inside. Losing it wasn’t my fault.”