James Howells is taking Newport City Council to court, demanding $647 million (£495 million) for 8,000 Bitcoins that he lost after a hard drive was mistakenly dumped in a landfill in 2013.
The 39-year-old IT engineer says this is his “last resort” after years of being ignored by the council. Howells wants access to the landfill to search for the hard drive, now worth hundreds of millions.
But the council has refused to cooperate. He’s been trying to get it back for over a decade, and his patience has evidently run out.
A decade of being ignored
Howells claims that the council’s refusal to allow the recovery operation has caused him immense financial loss.
According to him, he’s willing to fund a $12 million (£10 million) excavation at no cost to the council, offering them a 10% share of the recovered Bitcoin.
If successful, the council would walk away with more than $41 million. He’s taking this to court, hoping to force the council to reconsider.
At the time Howells lost the drive, Bitcoin was still in its early stages and hadn’t reached the massive value it holds today. Back then, the coins were worth under $1 million. Today, they’ve soared to nearly $500 million.
In the court documents, Howells explained how this all happened due to a simple mistake. He had asked his then-partner to take some bin bags to the local recycling center after a cleanout.
Unfortunately, she mistakenly threw out the wrong bag, and the hard drive ended up at the Docksway landfill site. By the time Howells realized what had happened, it was too late.
“If they had talked to me back then, Newport would look like Dubai by now,” Howells said. “They’ve missed an incredible opportunity. They could’ve turned the city into something special with the value of this Bitcoin.”
Despite his repeated efforts, the council has continued to resist, citing environmental concerns as the reason for not allowing the dig.
Plans for a massive dig
Howells isn’t working alone on this. He’s gathered a team of experts, including a former head of the Newport landfill, who are confident they know exactly where the hard drive is buried.
The landfill, located at Docksway, has been a thorn in Howells’ side for years. According to his team, the hard drive is located in ‘Cell 2 – Area 2’ of the site.
He’s proposing a massive excavation operation, which would take anywhere from 18 to 36 months, followed by another year of site restoration.
Howells’ team insists they can carry out the dig safely and without environmental damage. They’ve already lined up a company, FLI, that specializes in landfill redevelopment, and they plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the search.
In addition to recovering the Bitcoins, Howells’ team has offered to “modernize” the landfill as part of the deal.
Reports from Natural Resources Wales show that the site has been in breach of environmental permits since 2020, with dangerous substances like arsenic, asbestos, and methane found at the landfill.
The team believes there’s an 80% chance the hard drive’s data will be retrievable. It’s a long shot, but Howells says it’s worth it. The alternative is to let the hard drive stay buried forever, and with it, the chance of recovering his $647 million fortune.
Meanwhile, his attorneys argue that the council doesn’t own the hard drive, even though it was dumped at their landfill.
Howells never intended to abandon it, so the intellectual property on the drive still belongs to him. The council, though, believes that once the hard drive was disposed of, it became their property.
A council spokesperson said:
“The council has made it clear to Mr. Howells that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit. Any such work would have a huge negative impact on the surrounding environment.”
They also hit back at Howells’ criticisms over the environmental breaches, saying that those reports have no relation to the Bitcoin case and are being used to draw attention away from what they call a “weak” legal claim.
In their view, responding to Howells’ requests has already wasted valuable time and resources that could have been better spent elsewhere. The council remains adamant. They won’t allow the dig to go ahead, and they’re prepared to fight this out in court.
