Woman accidentally throws away boyfriend's £569m Bitcoin fortune

A woman has spoken about the agonising moment she realised that she had mistakenly thrown away her boyfriend's multimillion dollar Bitcoin fortune. She revealed that she had chucked an old hard drive at a tip in Wales oblivious to the fact it held 8,000 bitcoins mined by now ex-boyfriend, James Howells in 2009.

Howells is currently embroiled in a struggle to gain permission to search the Newport Council landfill site, where Halfina claims she disposed of the hard drive with the critical 'key' around ten years ago. Halfina confided to Mail Online that she desires for her ex to locate it—not for a share of the money but just to put an end to his constant talk about it.

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She stated: "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."

Adding, "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 now faces a legal battle against the council for the right to excavate the landfill site he believes contains the laptop hard drive with the vital digital key. This treasure hunt involves sifting through approximately 110,000 tonnes of waste beneath a layer of grass, reports the Mirror.

The 'lost' fortune at today's prices makes his Bitcoin worth £569m, and he has pledged to donate 10 per cent of the proceeds back to his local area. Ms Eddy-Evans, a mother of two, commented: "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 stated: "[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."