The Daily Star reported a story about Ellie Hart, a teacher from Market Harborough, UK, who allegedly discarded a flash drive containing bitcoins worth approximately $3.8 million. However, the article has raised doubts within the community.
According to the newspaper, the 34-year-old woman was unaware that the device held a fortune. She purportedly threw it away with other rubbish. Journalists noted that her husband “bought the coins in 2013,” “reacted calmly” to the incident, and “did not blame” his wife.
The crypto community questioned the veracity of the story. A Reddit user pointed out that a photo of the couple “looks artificial.”
Some participants in the discussion supported this view, calling the article fake. This is indirectly supported by the fact that the Daily Star provides a link to a gambling portal where Hart’s comment is supposedly posted, but no such material is found upon following the link. At the time of writing, the publication had not issued a retraction or comments regarding the article.
A check through a service for detecting artificially generated images showed a 9.1% probability of neural network use.
However, Hive AI Detector provided different results:
In February 2025, Mark Hall, a specialist from Business Waste, stated that the likelihood of finding a hard drive at a landfill and retrieving data from it is nearly zero. He commented on the search initiative by Briton James Howells, who lost access to 7500 BTC.
In the same month, plans were announced by officials to close and seal the landfill. Howells stated that he intends to buy the site with investor support.