According to Cointelegraph, James Howells, an IT engineer in Newport, sued the Newport City Council in the UK for 495 million pounds (about 647 million US dollars) in damages because he accidentally discarded a hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoins.

According to WalesOnline, the Howells have tried several times to retrieve the hard drive from the local landfill, but the city council has repeatedly rejected their requests to excavate it.

Howells accidentally threw away the hard drive while cleaning the house in 2013. The Bitcoin on the hard drive was worth about 1 million pounds (about 1.3 million US dollars) at the time.

Howells assembled a team of legal experts to file the lawsuit, which will go to trial in December.

Although Howells offered to give the city council 10% of the value of the Bitcoin if the hard drive was found, the city council has always opposed the excavation request on the grounds of environmental issues.

The landfill was flagged for environmental permit violations, including excessive levels of asbestos, arsenic and methane, and the council determined excavation could harm the surrounding environment.

In 2022, Howells proposed an $11 million plan to find the hard drive, but the city council still questioned its legality and feasibility and rejected the proposal.