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The search is on for £275 million dumped in a Welsh tip

By Kris Paterson in Employment News, posted July 21, 2021

James Howells (a not very bright) IT specialist has claimed that he has dumped £275 million after throwing out an old hard drive containing logins to a Bitcoin fortune. Speaking to The Sun, he claims to have contacted Newport Council in the United Kingdom and offered £55 million to help him find his lost hoard.

But stubborn council chiefs won't even listen to his ideas - no matter how much money he promises them, he said.

"Since I made the offer in January, the value of bitcoin has gone up and down - if we were to recover the hard drive today, it would be worth £275 million," he told The Sun Online.

"This would be a proper search - not just somebody going in with a bucket and spade.

"We have a system with multiple conveyer-belts, X-ray scanning devices, and an AI scanning device that would be trained to recognise items that are a similar size and density to the hard drive."

But council chiefs won't entertain the idea or allow him to meet with officials to outline his plans. He added: "This would be a delicate search because we wouldn't want to damage the hard drive in the process - you can't just use a claw grabber.

"We've spoken to excavation experts and proper engineers to make sure it was all being done correctly as well as in a way that was safe for the environment.

James of Newport said the scanning device alone would cost up to £500,000, and an extractor tool to clear up any pollution would cost a further £100,000. A spokeswoman said: "Newport City Council has been contacted several times since 2014 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to contain Bitcoins.

Source: TheSun