British Man Sues Council for $647M Over Lost Bitcoin Drive

James Howells, a 38-year-old IT engineer from Newport, is suing Newport City Council for £495 million (nearly $647 million) in damages after accidentally discarding a hard drive containing the private keys needed to access his 8,000 bitcoins.

According to WalesOnline, this lawsuit follows Howells numerous attempts to retrieve the drive from the local landfill but has met resistance from the council, which has repeatedly denied his requests to excavate the site.

A Costly Mistake 

Howells’ ordeal dates back to 2013 when a hard drive containing the private keys needed to access his bitcoins was mistakenly thrown out after a miscommunication with this then-partner causing him to lose access to his crypto holdings. 

At that time, the asset was worth around £1 million (about $1.3 million). Today, the value has soared to nearly half a billion pounds.

Since then, Howells has made numerous attempts to retrieve the hard drive from the local landfill. This includes devoting himself full-time to recovering it, giving up his IT job and securing investors to help fund the operation. 

He claims that the council has “largely ignored” his repeated requests to excavate the landfill where the hard drive is believed to be buried for more than a decade. 

Council Sued Over Lost Bitcoin Hard Drive

Howells has assembled a team of legal experts to file the court claim, which is set to be heard in December. He has offered the council 10% of the recovered Bitcoin’s value if the hard drive is found. 

“I’m still allocating 10% of the value for the council even though they have been problematic throughout. That would be £41m based on today’s rate but in the future it could be hundreds of millions. If they had spoken to me in 2013, this place would look like Las Vegas now. Newport would look like Dubai. That’s the kind of opportunity they’ve missed,” he said.

Howells’ team of experts, including the council’s former head of landfill claims they can safely excavate the site using artificial intelligence. 

Despite his offering to give the council 10% of the recovered BTC value if the hard drive is found, Newport City Council has consistently opposed the excavation request, citing environmental concerns.

The council argues that digging up the site could harm the surrounding area and claims its operation follows strict monitoring protocols.