Man in pursuit of lost $750ml Bitcoin hard drive seeks to buy landfill site

A British engineer who lost a hard drive with an estimated $750 million worth of Bitcoin on it isn’t letting up in his pursuit of it.

Computer engineer James Howells has already pursued several avenues to get back his lost hard drive, which he claims his former girlfriend threw out by mistake. It reportedly contains 8,000 Bitcoins, which he estimates would be worth $750 million worth of the cryptocurrency.

Since then, Howells has tried to sue the local country council in Newport, Wales, which involved taking the case to the UK High Court in 2024, and sought over $600 million worth of compensation from the authorities. Now, according to the BBC, his next step is to try and buy the landfill, as it has announced plans to close.

After Newport County Council documents showed that the landfill site was expected to close in the 2025/26 financial year, a council spokesperson said: “The landfill has been in exploitation since the early 2000s and is coming to the end of its life, therefore the council is working on a planned closure and capping of the site over the next two years.”

Although the council has plans to turn the site into a solar park, with the energy going towards powering its new bin lorries, Howells wants to seize the opportunity to buy the site and get access to his hard drive.

“The council planning on closing the landfill so soon is quite a surprise, especially since it 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 told the BBC.

The site currently holds around 1.4 million tons worth of waste but Howells thinks he’s narrowed the search done to an area containing 100,000 tons.

“I would be potentially interested in purchasing the landfill site,” he added. The move to purchase the site is reportedly in discussion to be backed by investment partners.

The engineer also stated that he plans to appeal against the judge’s decision to dismiss his case against the council.

Featured image: Midjourney

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