Lafarge admits paying terror groups, fined $777m

Lafarge SA has pleaded guilty and agreed paying $777.8 million to resolve a US federal criminal charge related to the French company’s payments to ISIS and another terror group to keep a cement plant operating in Syria.

This was revealed on Tuesday.

The $10.24 million in payments to ISIS, the al-Nusrah Front and intermediaries were made from August 2013 through October 2014, and occurred even as the terror group was kidnapping and killing Westerners.

“Lafarge has admitted and taken responsibility for its staggering crime,” said the US Attorney Breon Peace in a statement.

“Never before has a corporation been charged with providing material support and resources to foreign terrorist organisations,” Attorney Peace said.

Peace’s office said Lafarge Cement Syria executives bought materials needed for their cement plant in the Jalabiyeh region of northern Syria from ISIS-controlled-suppliers, and paid monthly “donations” to ISIS and ANF, so that employees, customers and suppliers could cross checkpoints around the plant.

Lafarge Cement Syria “eventually agreed to make payments to ISIS based on the volume of cement that LCS sold to its customers, which Lafarge and LCS executives likened to paying ‘taxes,'” Peace’s office said.

An indictment against Lafarge and its defunct Syrian subsidiary was unsealed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, charging them with one count of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, Lafarge pleaded guilty and was sentenced at a hearing there.
“In the midst of a civil war, Lafarge made the unthinkable choice to put money into the hands of ISIS, one of the world’s most barbaric terrorist organizations, so that it could continue selling cement,” Peace said.

“Lafarge did this not merely in exchange for permission to operate its cement plant – which would have been bad enough – but also to leverage its relationship with ISIS for economic advantage, seeking ISIS’s assistance to hurt Lafarge’s competition in exchange for a cut of Lafarge’s sales,” Peace said.

In a statement, Lafarge said, “Lafarge SA and Lafarge Cement Syria have accepted responsibility for the actions of the individual executives involved, whose behavior was in flagrant violation of Lafarge’s Code of Conduct.

“We deeply regret that this conduct occurred and have worked with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve this matter.”

-CBNC