Terrorists, criminals, and hostile states received more than £28 billion in aid from the United Kingdom during the period 2015–2021, according to a secret report from the upper ranks of the British Civil Service that The Telegraph has revealed.

Among the recipients of British taxpayers’ money – equivalent to approximately NOK 350 billion – are the Islamic State (IS) and companies linked to China and Russia, writes Rozina Sabur, the English newspaper’s editor for national security affairs.

In addition to ordinary aid, the hostile actors also obtained special support that the government provided in connection with the coronavirus pandemic.

A large proportion of the misappropriated funds went to criminal gangs, including people traffickers who claimed housing benefit and disability benefits.

Sources said they believed there was also a degree of overlap between some of the organised criminal groups and hostile states.

The report was prepared by the Cabinet Office in 2023, the highest administrative authority within the British government apparatus, whose principal task is to support the Prime Minister – and it was intended solely for senior officials.

According to The Telegraph’s sources, the report was buried by the previous government in order to avoid embarrassment over the enormous misuse of funds, which even financed security threats against the United Kingdom.

 Rebecca Harding of the Centre for Economic Security says the document should serve as a wake-up call that “economic warfare and economic security are more important than ever – there have been threats from adversaries, state actors and non-state actors that are coming through business”.

“One of the problems is that we have assumed that everyone wants the same things as we do. What we have not realised is that, when it comes to other countries … [some] want to project their economic power in a way that undermines our economic power.

“That is economic warfare, and we have been naive about all of this.”

One state that is hostile to the United Kingdom has been pulling the strings, but the sources are unwilling to say which one:

They say there has been a coordinated effort to obtain British public funds by an organised criminal network with links to Eastern Europe.

The gang was supported by a hostile state in order to encourage illegal immigration to the United Kingdom, the sources say. They refuse to provide further details, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence.

Part of the background to the commissioning of the report was concern about a lack of due diligence in processes relating to public grants. However, the findings were so catastrophic that the officials who received it decided to suppress the entire matter.

Tom Keatinge, a spokesperson for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a defence and security policy think tank in the United Kingdom, believes that the government is not sufficiently careful about whom it finances.

Keatinge says there are “many examples” of the welfare system having become “a cash machine for terrorists”, although he says that the agencies distributing funds have become more aware of this risk.

He says that the administration of the Covid loan scheme was also “quite catastrophic”, adding: “If there is a loophole, anyone can exploit it – criminals, terrorists, anyone who just wants to make quick money.”

There is little reason to believe that this risk is any smaller in Norway.