After his ex-partner Halfina Eddy-Evans finally came forward, the story of James Howells and the stolen bitcoins recently took a new turn. Eddy-Evans threw away a hard drive in 2013 that had the key to 8,000 Bitcoins that Howells had mined in 2009. According to Coinbase, the current value of one Bitcoin is about Rs 79 lakh.
When Bitcoin was still in its infancy, Newport, Wales-based IT engineer James Howells mined 8,000 of the cryptocurrency. He lost the hard drive, which included the master digital key to unlock these Bitcoins, though. According to the Daily Mail, Eddy-Evans disposed of the hard drive during a cleanup when Howells demanded that she discard multiple bags of rubbish without telling her that the hard drive was there.
“Yes, I threw away his rubbish—he asked me to,” Eddy-Evans told the media outlet, adding that she was unaware of what was in the bags she threw away.
Eddy-Evans bemoaned the media’s incessant attention to the stolen money in a recent interview. She emphasises that she does not desire wealth and expresses hope that Howells will recover the hard drive and find closure. “I hope he discovers it. “I don’t want any of his money, but it will make him stop talking,” she said.
“Losing it was not my fault,” she added, describing how she struggled with her responsibilities as a mother and ultimately took the bags to a local garbage.
Eddy-Evans stated that she believes Howells’ mental health is being harmed by the constant news of the lost riches. “I have the opinion that the council ought to let the tip site to be excavated. However, she told the Daily Mail, “the other part thinks for him just to drop it and let it go.”
Howells is engaged in a legal dispute with Newport City Council and has been attempting to recover the hard drive since 2013. He is suing the municipality for £495 million, claiming that they are preventing him from reaching the landfill, where he claims the hard drive is located among more than 100,000 tonnes of garbage. His applications have been turned down by the council on the grounds that excavation operations will harm the environment.
Additionally, he suggested returning 10% of the income to Newport so that it may grow into the “Dubai or Las Vegas of the UK.”
