The scheme was kept secret under the only ever government superinjunction

A data leak has revealed that thousands of Afghans were secretly brought to the UK in a government scheme estimated to cost £850,000,000.

The information comes after The Times revealed that a British military data leak put up to 100,000 Afghans at risk of death.

The data breach came in February 2022 when a solider accidently sent a list of tens of thousands of names to Afghans while trying to verify applications for sanctuary in Britain and at risk from the Taliban.

This came after the west pulled out of the nation leaving the Taliban to take control of the country.

A recipient threatened to pass the list on and publish it on Facebook, leading to fears that such a scenario would effectively give the Taliban a ‘kill list’.

This ultimately led to the UK having to bring thousands of endangered Afghans to the UK in order to clean up the mistake.

Subsequently, this leak led to successive governments using an unprecedented superinjuction to keep the operation under wraps, preventing much of media reporting on details of the operation.

The plan, named Operation Rubific, was earmarked to use £7 billion of taxpayers’ money with the intention of shutting down the leak and prevent the breach from going public.

The operation would see thousands covertly evacuated from Afghanistan.

Around 24,000 Afghans affected by the breach have been brought to the UK or will be going forward, as reported by The Times.

The superinjunction put in place was the first ever to be deployed by the government and the longest ever.

A superinjuction prevents any reporting or public discussions of certain matters which have to be approved by a judge in a high court.

It has now been lifted.

A lawsuit involving some 900 of those affected across the world is being prepared against the government and is expected to cost it at least £250 million.