A British #Bitcoin investor who lost 7,500 BTC is preparing to sue the Newport City Council (UK) for refusing to excavate a landfill to search for a hard drive containing the cryptocurrency. This was reported by The Telegraph.
Former computer engineer James Howells accidentally threw away the device containing the cryptocurrency in August 2013 during an office cleanup. His partner took the bag with the hard drive to a landfill in South Wales.
For ten years, Howells has been seeking permission from the Newport authorities to conduct #HDD search operations.
Now his lawyers have sent an open letter to the municipality demanding access to the site by September 18.
Otherwise, the crypto investor intends to initiate legal proceedings to recover the city's lost Bitcoin, which exceeds $500 million. Howells also plans to have the authorities reconsider their decision to deny him access to the landfill.
"For 10 years, I've tried everything I could, but they didn't want to cooperate, so I'll have to go through legal channels. There's $500 million in the ground, and they don't even want to discuss it seriously. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's Bitcoin, gold, or diamonds. Not discussing it is idiocy," Howells said. He offered to cover the excavation costs and make donations to the Newport community. According to previous estimates, the cost of the work ranged from $6 million to $11 million for a three-year search. At the time of writing, the value of the lost cryptocurrency is approximately $194 million.
Howells is funded by an undisclosed external investor. The former engineer has assembled a team of 16 people, including a former landfill manager and data recovery specialists. Each participant will receive a portion of the cryptocurrency from the hard drive in case of success, which has a likelihood of up to 90% if the device is not damaged.
A representative of the Newport City Council confirmed that Howells has repeatedly contacted them since 2013 regarding the return of the disk.
