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BIT OF TREASURE

Wizz who threw out hard drive with £150M of Bitcoin wants to use robot ‘dogs’ to dig it out of a tip

A WHIZ who threw out a hard drive containing £150million of Bitcoin wants to use robot “dogs” to dig it out of a tip.

James Howells, 37, stored Bitcoin on it in 2009 when the currency was almost worthless.

James Howells, who threw out a hard drive containing £150million of Bitcoin, wants to use robot 'dogs' to dig it out of a tip
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James Howells, who threw out a hard drive containing £150million of Bitcoin, wants to use robot 'dogs' to dig it out of a tipCredit: Rex Features
Howells wants to use robot dogs to dig through rubbish at a landfill site — his latest bid to retrieve the fortune
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Howells wants to use robot dogs to dig through rubbish at a landfill site — his latest bid to retrieve the fortune

He chucked it away by mistake in 2013 but the value has since soared.

The IT engineer wants to spend £11million hiring a firm used by Nasa to use robot dogs to dig through rubbish at a landfill site — his latest bid to retrieve the fortune.

James said: “This is the most professional operation we’ve put together.

“It’s a serious proposal, we are capable of completing this task to a very high standard.”

Nasa hired AI firm Ontrack’s “dogs” to recover a hard drive from the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster.

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Experts at the firm say up to 90 per cent of the Bitcoin fortune can be recovered.

Read More on The Sun

If the three-year plan works James will turn the site in Newport, Gwent, into a solar farm with wind turbines.

But Newport City Council said his proposals “pose significant ecological risk which we cannot accept, and are prevented from considering by the terms of our permit”.

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