British engineer plans to buy landfill where his 7,500 bitcoins are buried

James Howells, an engineer from Newport, UK, has announced his intention to purchase a plot of land with a landfill where his hard drive containing 7,500 bitcoins, worth over $770 million, is buried. This was reported by The Guardian.

Howells revealed that he is already discussing the purchase of the land with unnamed investors. He believes that acquiring the land will allow him to safely search for the missing bitcoins, which he has been trying to recover for over 10 years. The investor lost his cryptocurrency in 2013 when his ex-wife accidentally threw away the hard drive containing the digital assets.

In January 2025, a Welsh court prohibited Howells from digging at the landfill, and later the local city council announced plans to close the site.

"The council stated in court that closing the landfill for excavation would have a detrimental impact on Newport residents. It turned out that the administration planned to close the site anyway. I expected this to happen in the coming years because the site is 80-90% full, but I didn't think it would happen so soon," Howells said.

Earlier, James Howells, a computer expert from the UK, approached the Welsh court to seek permission to search for the bitcoins at the Newport landfill.