Man Accidentally Threw Away a Hard Drive with US $800 Million in Bitcoin and Seeks to Recover It by Buying a Landfill in London

London

CNN

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Buried in a landfill in Wales, under layers of years of garbage, is a hard drive containing the key to nearly US $800 million in bitcoin, or at least that’s what James Howells believes after accidentally throwing away the drive in 2013.

And now, after years of battling in court with the local authority to recover the hard drive, Howells has come up with a new plan: simply buy the landfill.

"I am considering buying a landfill site. Funding secured," he wrote on Thursday on X, repeating comments he made that were widely reported in UK media on Monday, although he did not say who was providing the funding.

CNN reached out to Howells for comment.

Howells has tried almost everything to access the Docksway landfill in Newport, a city 12 miles (19 kilometers) northeast of the Welsh capital, Cardiff, including offering the Newport City Council more than US $70 million in 2021 for permission to dig at the site.

His latest plan comes after a judge in the British High Court halted his case from going to trial, issuing a ruling in January that dismissed his attempts to compel the Council to allow him to search the landfill.