James Howells, who has spent the last 12 years trying to convince officials in the U.K. city of Newport to let him explore the city landfill, is now offering to buy the dump.
Howells believes the landfill contains an old hard drive of his that contains almost $770 million in Bitcoin. His attempts to excavate the drive through legal means hit a dead end in January, when a judge ruled he had “no realistic prospect of succeeding” in his effort if the case were to continue.
This year, however, the landfill is being closed and will reportedly be replaced by a solar farm. And Howells sees that as an opening.
“The council planning on closing the landfill so soon is quite a surprise, especially since it claimed at the High Court that closing the landfill to allow me to search would have a huge detrimental impact on the people of Newport, whilst at the same time they were planning to close the landfill anyway,” he told the UK media outlet Metro. “I would be potentially interested in purchasing the landfill site. I have discussed this option recently with investment partners and it is very much on the table.”