7,500 BTC mistaken for garbage and thrown away! British man's attempt to 'dig up landfill' rejected by court

British man James Howells mistakenly discarded a hard drive containing 7,500 kBTC (worth over 7 billion US dollars), and has been repeatedly refused permission to excavate the landfill over the past 10 years. He has now sued the local council in anger. However, the lawsuit has been dismissed by the High Court in the UK.

According to James Howells, these BTC were mined by him in 2009. However, in 2013, when he was doing a big clean-up at home, he mistakenly put the hard drive containing the BTC into a black garbage bag, which was later discarded by his then partner. Eventually, this garbage bag was sent to a recycling center.

James Howells has been trying to retrieve the hard drive from the local landfill for the past 10 years. He has repeatedly requested the excavation of the landfill, but has been consistently rejected by the Newport City Council, despite his promise to give 10% of the value of the BTC he holds to the council if the hard drive is recovered. The council continues to oppose the excavation on environmental grounds.

James Howells filed a lawsuit against Newport City Council last October, demanding that he be allowed to dig into the landfill or pay him £495 million ($609 million) in compensation.

At the hearing in December last year, the Newport City Council requested that the High Court dismiss the case on the grounds that under current law, once the hard drive enters the landfill, it is considered 'public property', and environmental permits explicitly prohibit excavation in landfills.

According to a report by the BBC, Judge Andrew John Keyser KC of the High Court in the UK stated in a written judgment on Thursday that the lawsuit "lacks a reasonable legal basis", and even if the case were to proceed to trial, there is "no possibility of success", nor are there any other reasons convincing enough to justify further court review, thus ruling to dismiss the case.

James Howells has optimistically predicted that this "sleeping wealth" could appreciate to £1 billion (about $1.2 billion) by 2026, and has threatened to stand back even if the case needs to be appealed to the UK Supreme Court.

〈7,500 BTC was mistakenly thrown away! Yingnan's attempt to "dig a landfill" was rejected by the court" This article was first published in "Blocker".