James Howells might go down in history books as one of the unluckiest people ever, having discarded hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin accidentally.
But a new twist in this decade-old bizarre saga revealed that it was not him but his ex-girlfriend who unintentionally threw the fortune away.
Halfina Eddy-Evans confessed during a Monday interview with the Daily Mail that she threw away the hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin at the request of Howells. She was adamant that the loss was not her fault, as she did so at Howells’ request.
Halfina said Howells “begged” her to dispose of some “unwanted belongings,” in a black sack, which, unknown to her, included the hard drive.
“I thought he should be running his errands, not me, but I did it to help out,” Howells said.
Halfina said that the blame for losing Bitcoins shouldn’t be fixed on her, though she hoped Howells would succeed in retrieving the drive.
This revelation added a new layer to the unfortunate story of Howells, who has been waging a long battle to recover his fortune.
A Wales-based software engineer, Howells, sued the Newport City Council for approximately $647 million in damages for repeatedly denying his request to excavate the landfill site housing the discarded hard drive.
He has even assembled a team of specialists to excavate at no cost to the council and proposed giving the council 10% of the recovered coins’ value.
The 8,000 Bitcoins would be worth $797 million at the all-time high price of 99,645 recorded recently and $765.9 million at the current market price of $95.736.86.