A multi-million dollar hard drive is buried in a landfill, yet the city refuses to let him search for it. A man fights for his property.
The title image is a symbolic representation.
Why is he searching in a landfill? As WalesOnline reports, James Howells has spent much of his life for years searching for a lost hard drive. It ended up in a garbage bag that was disposed of in a landfill in his hometown of Newport. On it, the Welshman stored the key to his bitcoins mined between 2009 and 2013, which today are worth about 500 million euros for approximately 8,000 pieces (via btc-echo.com).
Buried treasure of bitcoins
James Howells has now quit his job as an IT engineer and is searching full-time for ways to retrieve his old hard drive. For this, he has even hired the former manager of the landfill to help narrow down the search. Using AI, robots, and an approximate location of where the garbage bag from 2013 is buried, he hopes to complete the excavations within a maximum of three years.
To finance his treasure hunt, he has gained investors who support him. Ultimately, if successful, they would receive more than 3/4 of the bitcoins. The remaining 125 million euros still represent a significant incentive for Howells.
Why doesn’t he just start digging? The city of Newport, however, refuses access to the landfill and the excavation. They justify this with concerns about the environment, as there are also harmful substances buried underground. James Howells is now taking the matter to court. He wants to claim the right to search for his property.
In the event of success, he had already promised years ago to donate ten percent of the value to Newport, around 50 million euros. In addition, he would cover all costs for the undertaking and any subsequent cleanup.
How did the hard drive end up in the garbage bag? According to Howells’ account to WalesOnline, there was a misunderstanding with his then-girlfriend in 2013. She took a garbage bag to the landfill before he could check if he had put the right HDD in. Instead of the multi-million dollar hard drive, a worthless but identical one remained on his shelf.
A Chinese man has become a prime minister with the help of his wealth in cryptocurrencies. However, the state as well as the parliament he presides over are very unusual and actually do not exist, yet somehow do: A Chinese became a millionaire with cryptocurrencies, ruling over his own country in Europe that does not actually exist
