A UK man is reportedly suing his city council for hundreds of millions of dollars for not allowing him to dig up his old hard drive containing Bitcoin (BTC) from a landfill.
According to a new report by WalesOnline, James Howells has filed a $647 million lawsuit against the City Council of Newport for blocking him from recovering his hard drive for over a decade after a misunderstanding caused it to be dumped in a recycling center.
Howells says that he attempted to contact the council for over 10 years but was largely ignored, going as far as funding and assembling a team that could pull off the recovery – which would require excavating 100,000 tons of garbage – as well as offer the council 10% of the recovered Bitcoin.
According to Howells, the hard drive contains 8,000 Bitcoin currently worth over $500 million. His partner at the time accidentally threw away a trash bag containing his BTC wallet after he placed it there while clearing out some equipment.
Howells’ team said that if the hard drive were to be found, there would be about an 80% chance the coins would be retrievable.
However, the council has rejected his proposal to launch a search citing environmental concerns.
As stated by a council spokesperson in the report,
“The council has told Mr. Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area. The council is the only body authorized to carry out operations on the site.”
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