For the past decade, a Welsh man has begged the city government for permission to view the contents of his local garbage dump. James Howells, a 39-year-old Newport resident, has been desperate for 7,500 bitcoins since he accidentally threw them in the trash on his hard drive in 2013. The rise in the value of cryptocurrencies over the past decade means these assets are worth more than $500 million today.
Unfortunately for Mr. Howells, the Newport City Council repeatedly denied his requests. Lawmakers argue that digging deeper into the landfill violates regulations and could cause significant damage to the surrounding environment.
Mr Howell is now suing the council to force the local government to carry out his wishes, and is seeking £495,314,800 in damages, Wales Online reports. The amount Howells is seeking is roughly equivalent to what he could have earned if he kept the drive holding the cryptocurrencies. Howells told local media he doesn't actually want the money from the city council, just trying to get it to allow drilling to continue.
This is just the latest step in an increasingly desperate (and likely quite expensive) effort to recover the drive. The Register reports that over the past decade, Mr. Howells has “quit his job in the IT industry and assembled a team of investors” who would split up a large portion of his assets if a motive could be found. It is written that Howells, meanwhile, plans to retain about 30 percent of its value.
Gizmodo has reached out to the Newport City Council for comment. We will update this story once we receive a response.
Howells claims that if he can recover the hard drive, he will share a percentage of the profits from it with the local community. In fact, Mr. Howell makes some pretty funny claims about how Newport city councilors are missing an opportunity by denying his request to scavenge the dump. “If they had talked to me in 2013, this place would look like Las Vegas now,” Howell told Wales Online. “Newport is going to look like Dubai. They missed that opportunity.” Another local resident of Newport (the city is already considered a fairly busy metropolitan area) It's unclear whether the city really wants its neighborhood to resemble Las Vegas.
In a statement to the Register, the city council said: “We have repeatedly advised Mr Howells that excavation is not possible under the environmental permits and that work of this nature would have a significant negative environmental impact on the surrounding area. ” he said. It added: “The council is the only authority authorized to carry out activities on the ground.”
It's worth considering how much money Howells has poured into this bizarre pursuit. After all, the drive in question is most likely A) lost forever, B) completely damaged and unusable, or both. If so, Howell has wasted years of his life and a ton of pocket money. At the same time, if Howells manages to get his mitts on his beloved drive, and crypto assets are somehow in an obtainable form, he'll never have to work again. So his enthusiasm for this whole thing is somewhat understandable.
