Briton who lost 7,500 BTC to sue Newport council

A Bitcoin investor is preparing to sue Newport City Council (United Kingdom) for refusing to excavate a landfill to recover a hard drive containing 7,500 BTC. The Telegraph reports.

A former computer engineer, James Howells, accidentally discarded the device containing the cryptocurrency in August 2013 during an office clean-up. His partner took the bag with the hard drive to a landfill in South Wales.

For a decade, Howells has sought permission from Newport authorities to search for the HDD.

Now his lawyers have sent the municipality an open letter demanding permission to access the site by 18 September.

Otherwise the crypto investor intends to initiate litigation to seek compensation from the Newport City Council for the amount of the lost bitcoin, which exceeds $500 million. Howells also plans to push for a reconsideration of the decision to deny him access to the landfill.

“For ten years I have tried everything I could, but they wouldn’t cooperate, so we will have to go down the legal route. There is $500 million lying in the ground, and they won’t even talk about it seriously. It doesn’t matter what the item is — Bitcoin, gold, or diamonds. Not discussing it is idiocy,” Howells said.

He proposed that the council cover the excavation costs, and also make donations to the Newport community. Earlier estimates put the cost of the works between $6 million and $11 million in the event of a three-year search. At the price at the time of writing, the value of the lost cryptocurrency stood at around $194 million.

Howells is funded by an unidentified external investor. The former engineer has assembled a team of 16 people, including a former landfill manager and data-recovery specialists. Each participant will receive a share of the cryptocurrency from the disk upon success, with a probability of up to 90% if the device is not damaged.

A Newport City Council spokesperson confirmed that since 2013 Howells has repeatedly urged for the return of the disk, which may not even be on that landfill. According to him, excavations are not possible under current environmental norms, as such work would have “a huge negative impact on the local environment” of the surrounding area.

The official noted that the authorities’ position has not changed.

Back in 2021, Howells offered the Newport City Council $72 million for the landfill dig. To search for the hard drive he planned to use artificial intelligence and to deploy Boston Dynamics robot dogs.