Cement firm Lafarge pleads guilty to supporting terrorists

October 21, 2022

French cement maker Lafarge has pleaded guilty to giving millions of dollars of financial backing to ISIS and other terrorist groups.

The company has agreed to pay a $777.8 million (£687.2 million) penalty to settle a US federal criminal charge.

The Paris-based firm made the payments as part of an effort to maintain its operations in Syria after their civil war started in March 2011.

It is the first time a company had pleaded guilty in the US to aiding terrorists and Lafarge has said it "deeply regretted" the actions of the “individual executives involved".

The firm opened its plant in Jalabiya, northern Syria, in 2010 following a $680 million investment.

Prosecutors revealed they paid ISIS and al Nusra Front (previously referred to as al-Qaeda) the equivalent of $5.92 million between August 2013 and October 2014.

Lafarge said it was to protect staff at the plant as Syria’s civil war intensified, with executives likening the arrangements to paying "taxes".

Prosecutors explained that before Lafarge evacuated the plant in September 2014 when terrorists seized control of it, its dealings there helped the company generate $70.3 million in sales.

US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said: “[Their actions] reflect corporate crime that has reached a new low and a very dark place. Business with terrorists cannot be business as usual.”

Lafarge was bought by global building materials specialists Holcim in 2015.

The Switzerland-based firm has released a statement to confirm it was not involved in any of the highlighted conduct and that it has “never operated in Syria".

It added that former Lafarge executives involved had concealed it from Holcim and external auditors.

The dealings by Lafarge were made public in 2016 on a website run by a Syrian opposition group.

Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said: “The defendants paid millions of dollars [to] a terrorist group that otherwise operated on a shoestring budget.

“It was millions of dollars [they] could use to recruit members, wage war against governments, and conduct brutal terrorist attacks worldwide.”