He was a man – and he trashed his fortune. James Howells, 37, has longed for the landfill in Newport, Wales for years. Because that’s where his 145 million Swiss Franc fortune is buried. In the form of a laptop hard drive with 7500 bitcoins on it.
Howells’ adventure lasted almost a decade. His treasure has been underground since 2013. At that time, the IT engineer told the British “BBC” that after pouring a drink on his laptop, he put the hard drive in a drawer. The next time he cleaned the house, it went to the trash can. He “completely forgot” the thousands of bitcoins he bought for almost nothing in 2009.
Mega reward for the city
The British only realized the setback months later. He immediately contacts the city government and tries to persuade them to make a big search. Unsuccessful. Even with promises of big rewards, Howells falls on deaf ears. He’s totally wrong: “Imagine how great it would be if everyone in town got a few hundred pounds.”
The reward offers have increased with each cryptocurrency price boom. Howells doubled back in 2021: “I’m ready to increase my bid to 25 percent. That would be over £50m!” He wanted to invest the money in a corona fund for the city’s residents.
Brit falls on deaf ears
The city doesn’t want to know anything about the mega bounty. A spokesperson said: ‘The City Office informed Mr Howells on several occasions that excavation was not possible due to lack of permits. In addition, the environmental impact will be enormous.” Additionally: “Costs will run into the millions – with no guarantee that the hard drive will actually be found or will continue to work.”
Still, Howells doesn’t want to discourage him from his plan. His latest idea has it all: the robot dogs must find the lost treasure. In July, Howells revealed his plan on “Business Insider”: He wants the landfill to be looted on three levels. It wants to use human assistants, a conveyor belt with an artificial intelligence trained to recognize hard drives, and the robot dogs in question to mix up 110,000 tons of waste. He estimated it would take three years.
Schweizer wants to help
The cost of the project: 11 million Swiss Francs. He gets the money, among others, from Swiss venture capitalist Hanspeter Jaberg. Howells also recruited eight experts. In 2003, one of them worked for the company that rescued the black box from the burned-out space shuttle “Columbia”.
If the Bitcoin treasure hunt and data recovery is successful, Howells wants to keep 30 percent of the wealth to himself. 30 went to the investor and his assistants, the rest to the community and its residents.