On July 15, the Daily Mail reported on a data leak from the United Kingdom that forced the British Ministry of Defense to carry out a 23-month cover-up of a £6 billion, or $8.1 billion, “smuggling” operation to bring tens of thousands of Afghans into the country.

In February 2022, a British soldier sent a list to a contact in Afghanistan that contained information for 33,000 Afghans deemed ineligible for protection in the U.K. under the Afghan Resettlement and Placement scheme. The recipient passed the list on.