Computer engineer offers council £50m to help dig 7,500 Bitcoins out of landfill
The £210 million hard drive was unintentionally dumped when clearing out a desk
An IT engineer who accidentally dumped a hard drive containing 7,500 Bitcoins is ready to share 25 per cent of the haul's value with Newport Council, if they help him to recover it from a landfill site in the city.
James Howells, 35, says he unintentionally threw out the hard drive of his old laptop in 2013 when he was clearing out his desk.
"I had two identical hard drives and I threw out the wrong one," Howells told The Guardian.
"I have to laugh about it now."
Howells says his old hard drive is currently buried at a landfill site in Newport, south Wales. The value of the digital currency was about £500,000 when he threw it away.
Since then, its value has soared - currently at about £28,000 per Bitcoin - which means that Howells' stash is now worth about £210 million.
Howells started mining Bitcoin in 2009. As one of the first Bitcoin miners, he was able to use his laptop to complete the process, mining 7,500 bitcoins for almost nothing.
Since throwing away his hard drive in mid-2013, Howells has repeatedly asked Newport City Council for help in recovering it from the landfill site. He is even ready to share 25 per cent of the fortune - £50 million - with the Council.
He believes there is a good chance that the inner disk, where the data is stored, would still be in good enough condition to enable him to recover his loot.
Howells believes finding the drive would not be very difficult. He plans to hire a professional team, and as he knows when he threw it away, that information could be used to find a grid reference of where the hard drive is buried.
He also claims that a hedge fund is ready to pay money for the search, so the Council would not suffer any financial loss.
But, the Council is not ready. It has repeatedly refused Howells' request, claiming that excavation at a landfill site would violate licensing regulations and may also cause environmental damage.
"Newport City Council has been contacted a number of times since 2014 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to contain Bitcoins," the Council said in a statement.
"The Council has also told Mr Howells on a number of occasions that excavation is not possible under our licensing permit and excavation itself would have a huge environmental impact on the surrounding area."
"We have, therefore, been clear that we cannot assist him in this matter."