IT Engineer James Howells Loses Legal Battle to Excavate Landfill for Bitcoin-Filled Hard Drive

A Welsh IT engineer has lost his bid to excavate a landfill in Newport to search for a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin, now valued at over $750 million.

James Howells, who mined the Bitcoin in 2009, claimed to have accidentally discarded the hard drive in his garbage during an office clear-out in 2013.

He has since faced legal hurdles in his attempts to retrieve the device from the landfill, which is owned by Newport City Council.

After several failed attempts to gain permission to excavate the site, Howells faced a UK court in his latest bid to either gain access to the landfill or be awarded $608 million in damages.

However, Judge Keyser KC ruled that Howells’ claim had “no realistic prospect” of succeeding at trial.

The court upheld the council's stance that the excavation would breach environmental permits and pose significant ecological risks, effectively ending Howells’ excavation efforts.

After mining the Bitcoin in 2009, when it was nearly worthless, Howells went on to discard the hard drive during an office cleanup in 2013.

He has since faced a decade-long struggle to retrieve the device from the Newport landfill.

Despite offering 10% of the potential recovery and proposing a £10 million excavation plan funded by investors, the council has consistently denied his requests.

In his latest legal move, Howells sought either access to the landfill or $608 million in damages.

However, the council countered that the hard drive became its property upon entering the landfill, a point the court upheld.

The council cited the risk of environmental damage as a key reason for denying the excavation.

Howells had previously accused the council of environmental violations, claiming the landfill was already leeching toxins like arsenic.

However, the court sided with the council's assessment of the environmental impact.

Following the court's ruling, Howells stated that he would not give up and that he planned to tokenize the inaccessible Bitcoin into a new cryptocurrency, viewing the landfill as a “super-duper storage vault.”

While the legal battle over the landfill appears to be over, Howells is not giving up on finding an alternative way to recover his fortune.