IT expert wants to search landfill for £153m Bitcoin key he accidentally threw away

dailystar.co.uk:

Bitcoin has told how his local council have blocked him from scouring a huge landfill to find it.James Howells, 37, claims he accidentally tossed his 8,000 Bitcoins into landfill after mixing up two identical hard drives at his home in 2009.And despite the credit card-sized piece of tech being among 110,000 tons of rubbish which has been grassed over, he has devoted his life to finding it.READ MORE:Met Police shoot armed man in London before Air Ambulance flies him to hospital"Four times I've been to them and four times I've been ignored," he said of Newport City Council, in a chat with the Daily Mail. "They have not been co-operative at all.""Many people have accidentally thrown away something they didn't mean to," James added. "The difference is that I'm the only one where it turned out to be a £400million mistake."He bought the currency in 2009 when it was almost worthless - but the value has since soared, before dropping slightly.

In November, the value stood at £459m.Now he wants to spend £11m to hire a firm previously used by NASA boffins and use robot dogs to retrieve the fortune.James told the Times: "This is the most professional operation we've put together."It's a serious proposal, we are capable of completing this task to a very high standard."The Artificial Intelligence firm Ontrack's "dogs" were previously used to recover a hard drive from the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster.To stay up to date with all the latest news, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.Experts at the firm believe up 90% of the Bitcoin fortune can be recovered.If the stun works, James says he will transform the landfill site in Newport, Gwent, into a solar farm with wind turbines.But Newport City Council said his.