Lost - and not allowed to search: $720 million worth of bitcoins in a landfill

Dubai: His girlfriend dumped a hard disk containing the key to 'some bitcoins' he minted in a New Port landfill. He can’t blame her, because he had asked her to tidy up the place. This was in 2013. The 8,000 bitcoins, which he says the key in the hard disk will lead him to, are now worth a staggering 569 million pounds, or roughly $720million. He is fighting a losing battle against the Newport Council in Wales which has repeatedly denied his request to search the rubbish pile for the fortune. This essentially sums up the life of James Howell, 39 years old, from Wales, as reported by Mail Online.

The tragedy happened because of a mix-up, according to him. Howells had two identical laptop drives at home – one was blank and the other contained the keys to the bitcoins he minted in 2009, after weeks of experimentation. The drive was with Howells until the fateful incident in 2013.

He had asked his girlfriend Halfina Eddy-Evans to throw out the blank hard disk, but as luck would have it what ended up in the trash pile was the other one.

“Yes, I threw away his rubbish, he asked me to. The computer part had been disposed of in a black sack along with other unwanted belongings and he begged me to take it away. I had no idea what was in it but I reluctantly dropped it off at the local tip on the way home from going on the school run,” Halfina Eddy-Evans, told Mail Online.

"I did it to help out. Losing it was not my fault. I'd love nothing more than him to find it. I'm sick and tired of hearing about it,” she said.

"I have no claim on whatever money he could be worth. He is the father of my two sons but I don't want a penny of his money," Halfina said.

James said the council has continually refused to engage with him, despite him pledging to donate 10% of the proceeds back into the local area, on successful retrieval of the fortune.

Frustrated by the council's stand, James instigated action against the council as a last resort. A hearing on an application from the authority to get James' request thrown out, is scheduled for early December at Cardiff High Court, according to media. James has put together a team of experts and said he is confident of getting the application thrown out.

"I still own the intellectual digital property located on the hard drive," James insists.

"I am either entitled to recover the property at full cost to myself or if the landowner refuses it, they pay me the value of my property," he says.

"Newport City Council has been contacted multiple times since 2013 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to be in our landfill site," Daily Mirror has quoted a spokesperson of the council as saying.

"The council has told 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," he said.