James Howells, an IT engineer from Newport, Wales, has lost his long-running legal battle to recover a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin valued at over $750 million. The Newport City Council has consistently denied access to the landfill where the hard drive was accidentally discarded in 2013, citing environmental concerns.
In the latest setback, Judge Keyser KC dismissed Howells’ case, ruling it had “no realistic prospect” of success at trial, according to a BBC report. Howells mined the Bitcoin (BTC) in 2009, when it cost mere pennies to do so, and stored it on a hard drive that was later mistakenly thrown away.
Despite offering 10% of the recovered fortune to the council and the community, his proposals—including a £10 million (US$12.3 million) excavation plan funded by investors—were consistently rebuffed. The council cited risks of environmental damage, stating the excavation would breach its permits and harm the local ecosystem.
In his latest legal claim, the British man sought either access to the landfill or $608 million in damages—equivalent to a significant portion of Bitcoin’s value at its peak. The Newport Council countered that the hard drive became its property upon entering the landfill. They argued that the environmental impact of a dig was untenable. Judge Keyser agreed, adding Howells’ claim presented “no reasonable grounds” for proceeding to trial.
The Circuit Commercial Judge for Wales concluded how the council’s ownership of the landfill and its environmental permit provided a “complete answer” to the claim. “This ruling has taken everything from me and left me with nothing. It’s the great British injustice system striking again,” said Howells, as cited in the report.
However, he found solace in the court not challenging his ownership of the Bitcoin itself, a detail he hopes to leverage in future plans. The saga began in 2013 when Howells’ then-partner accidentally discarded the hard drive during an office cleanup. By 2024, the value of his lost Bitcoin had soared over 704,000 times, driven by crypto’s huge rise, making the loss increasingly painful. Over the years, Howells accused the council of environmental breaches, claiming it was leeching arsenic and other toxins into the environment.
Despite the court’s decision, Howells told Wales Online that he hasn’t given up entirely. He plans to explore tokenizing the inaccessible Bitcoin into a new crypto. “The landfill acts like a super-duper storage vault,” he said, noting how this might be his last resort to salvage any value. Howells said he now feels the dig is “completely off the table” but remains determined to find an alternative way to recover his fortune.
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