French cement giant Lafarge SA will pay a $778 million fine after pleading guilty to providing material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations in Syria during the Syrian civil war, Lafarge and its parent Holcim Group announced Tuesday.
The cement company on 18 October pleaded guilty to paying $17 million to the Islamic State group for keeping a plant in Syria open. This has been described as the first of its kind by the US Justice Department.
The company also admitted it paid nearly 13 million euros ($12.8 million) to middlemen to keep its Syrian cement factory running between 2013 and 2014, whereas other firms had pulled out of the country.
“Lafarge SA and its defunct subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria have agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations in Syria,” AFP quoted Lafarge to have said.”
According to the report, Lafarge SA and
its defunct subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria
(LCS), 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 US Department of Justice to resolve this matter.
A French court had this year (2022), ruled that the cement giant was aware that much of the money had gone to financing Islamic State operations.