Britain has long squandered public funds on frivolous ventures. A confidential file hints that the nation may have surpassed its own missteps.
Between 2015 and 2021, the British government allocated more than 28 billion pounds (roughly 37.5 billion dollars) to groups connected with terrorism and other hostile states, according to The Telegraph.
The secret dossier, as reported by The Telegraph, indicates that more than 28 billion pounds ended up in the hands of terrorist organisations and other national security threats. Sources told the newspaper that an organised crime network with ties to Eastern Europe made a concerted bid to secure British public money.
The document details COVID-19 loans being routed to Islamic State affiliates, grants issued to firms linked to the Russian government, and research expenditures directed at companies associated with the Chinese military. It also records cases of human traffickers claiming government benefits and COVID relief funds being diverted to the Islamic State in Syria.
Officials are said to have known the deplorable specifics of the dossier for years. Commissioned by security officials in 2023 after reports of widespread fraud in pandemic-era rescue schemes, the dossier “was never published to spare the government the political embarrassment of revealing the enormous scale of misdirected funds,” according to sources cited by The Telegraph.
This isn’t the first time concerns about wasteful government spending during the COVID-19 crisis have surfaced. In 2025, Parliament received a report concluding that 10.9 billion pounds (about 14.6 billion dollars) of taxpayers’ money was lost to fraud and error in the pandemic response. Approximately 324 million pounds (around 434 million dollars) of PPE purchases were fraudulent. Meanwhile, the Bounce Back Loan Scheme disbursed 1.5 million loans worth 46.5 billion pounds (about 62.3 billion dollars), with an estimated 2.8 billion pounds (around 3.75 billion dollars) lost to fraud and error. The report found that checks were insufficient, allowing a large number of fraudulent applications, and that many loans were issued to businesses with little or no verification.
From the outset, officials were aware of the risks attached to deploying such vast sums. The report stated that they lacked the necessary capabilities to manage fraud and error risks tied to a sizeable loan portfolio and acknowledged an elevated risk of fraud.
The secret dossier was compiled by examining government grants awarded between 2015 and 2021, a stretch during which even sizable misdirected funds represented only a fraction of Britain’s expansive aid program. During this period, the United Kingdom maintained one of the world’s largest foreign aid budgets, committing 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI) to aid. Under the statutory target, aid spending rose from 12.1 billion pounds in 2015 (about 16.2 billion dollars) to 15.2 billion pounds in 2019 (about 20.4 billion dollars), before sliding to 11.4 billion pounds in 2021 (about 15.3 billion dollars) after the target was reduced to 0.5 percent of GNI. Over the seven-year span, Britain devoted roughly 95 billion pounds (about 127.4 billion dollars) to foreign aid.
Indeed, the phenomenon of wasteful spending under the banner of foreign aid isn’t new. A report from the Institute of Economic Affairs, a British free-market think tank, notes that aid has flowed to regions wealthier than parts of Britain itself. The wealthiest recipient region cited, Ordos in China, was richer than 69 regions within the United Kingdom. Funded projects included a temporary cycle lane in Mexico City and a fully female-led traditional Chinese opera performance in Shanghai.
Yet The Telegraph’s reporting suggests that the government has now surpassed itself. The state is alleged not only to fund inconsequential initiatives but to directly finance fraudsters, criminal gangs, terrorists, and hostile regimes. A government large enough to spend billions in the name of global good appears, in this view, to have handed money to some of the most dangerous actors in the world.
