Putin ally sent top secret information by UK officials after email address typo - inquiry launched

Carelessly missing out the letter i in the email handle has caused classified information from the UK and other nations to be directed to West Africa.

Colonel Assimi Goïta, Mali's military ruler, has relied upon Wagner group mercenaries to cling on to power and thwart resistance from jihadist rebels.

Mali is one of six African nations to have had its palms greased by free grain from President Putin at a summit in St Petersburg yesterday.

The Kremlin used the summit to position itself as an alternative to Ukrainian grain exports, after it pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal.

Most of the emails directed to Mali contained trivial information, such as MoD and Foreign Office annual leave dates.

However, one email redirected to Mali this year revealed the names of British and American personnel researching hypersonic missile design at Porton Down, the Times reported.

An investigation by the Financial Times earlier this month found that millions of US military emails had found their way to Mali due to this typo error.

The alarm was first raised almost a decade ago by Dutch internet entrepreneur, Johannes Zuurbier, who is contracted to manage Mali’s country domain.

Zuurbier repeatedly attempted to warn the Pentagon about the data breach, for control of the .ml domain reverted from Zuurbier to Mali’s government when his 10-year contract elapsed this month.

Overseeing the country's domain, Zuurbier is said to have seen around 20,000 misdirected emails daily at the height of the widespread mistyping.

In a final effort to alert the Pentagon, which had rebuffed Zuurbier over many years, he collected more than 100,000 pieces of correspondence originally intended for the US military.

Zuurbier said: “I have been warning the US government about this for ten years but have been ignored.

“Any future mistypes could be seen by the Malian government and the only way to prevent a security leak is to warn people about the dangers of using ‘ml’.

“Mali can share whatever sensitive material they receive with any adversaries of the US from now on.”

Andrew Murrison, a defence minister, said: “Policies are put in place on all email systems to minimise the risk of such mistakes.

“Once the analysis of our email traffic is complete, we will consider what, if any, changes need to be made to MoD policies.”

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A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We have opened an investigation after a small number of emails were mistakenly forwarded to an incorrect email domain.

“We are confident they did not contain any information that could compromise operational security or technical data.

“All sensitive information is shared on systems designed to minimise the risk of misdirection.

“The MoD constantly reviews its processes and is currently undertaking a programme of work to improve information management, data loss prevention and the control of sensitive information.”

Luke Pollard, the shadow armed forces minister, said: “Ministers must immediately explain if any service personnel have been compromised or put in harm’s way due to this data breach. This lax approach to security must end.”