A woman has spoken out about the moment she realised she had lost £569million by mistake and had to tell her ex-boyfriend she had thrown away his fortune. Halfina Eddy-Evans took an old hard drive to the tip in Wales, having no idea it contained a whopping 8,000 Bitcoins, mined by James Howells back in 2009.
Although not hugely valuable at the time, it would now be worth a staggering nine-figure sum. James is now fighting for the right to search the landfill tip run by Newport Council, where Halfina said she took the hard drive containing the ‘key’, reports the Mirror.
The couple have since split but she told Mail Online that she hopes her ex finds it, not because she wants any of the cash, but to shut him up. Halfina said: “Yes, I threw away his rubbish, he asked me to.
“The computer part had been disposed of in a black sack along with other unwanted belongings and he begged me to take it away. I had no idea what was in it but I reluctantly dropped it off at the local tip on the way home from going on the school run.
“I thought he should be running his errands, not me, but I did it to help out. Losing it was not my fault. I’d love nothing more than him to find it. I’m sick and tired of hearing about it.”
James Howells is now taking the council to court in a final effort to unearth the ‘key’ to the Bitcoin jackpot. That digital key is on a laptop hard drive that he believes is currently buried somewhere in 110,000 tons of rubbish in a nearby landfill, which has now grassed over.
The ‘lost’ fortune at today’s prices makes his Bitcoin worth £569m and he has pledged to donate 10 per cent of proceeds back to his local area.
Ms Eddy-Evans, a mum of two, added: “Part of me thinks the council should let the tip site be dug up, it’s not helping his mental health with the thoughts of sitting in a fortune he can’t get. But the other part thinks for him just to drop it and let it go. I have no claim on whatever money he could be worth. He is the father of my two sons but I don’t want a penny of his money.”
A Newport City Council spokeswoman said: “[The] Council has been contacted multiple times since 2013 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to be in our landfill site. The council has told Mr Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit, and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area.
“The council is the only body authorised to carry out operations on the site. Mr Howells’s claim has no merit, and the council is vigorously resisting it.”
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