US: French cement firm admits Islamic State group payments
French cement company Lafarge pleaded guilty Tuesday to paying millions of dollars to the Islamic State group to keep a plant operational in Syria — at a time when the militant group was engaged in torturing kidnapped Westerners — and agreed to pay roughly $778 million in penalties.
The Justice Department accused the company of turning a blind eye to the conduct of the Islamic State, negotiating a revenue-sharing agreement with the militant group as it was acquiring new territory and as Syria was mired in a brutal civil war. The company’s actions, already investigated by French law enforcement authorities, occurred before it merged with Swiss company Holcim to form the world’s largest cement maker.
Justice Department officials described it as the first case in which a company has pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Lafarge and a long-defunct Syrian subsidiary entered the plea in federal court in Brooklyn, agreeing to criminal fines of $90.78 million and a forfeiture of $687 million.