French Building Materials Maker Pleads Guilty to Providing Support to ISIS, Al-Nusrah Front

French global building materials manufacturer Lafarge along with its Syrian subsidiary, Lafarge Cement Syria, pleaded guilty on Oct. 18 to conspiring to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and the al-Nusrah Front, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced. Both ISIS and ANF are sanctioned foreign terrorist organizations. Immediately following the guilty pleas, Judge William Kuntz sentenced the companies to probation terms and financial penalties. The companies will pay $90.78 million in criminal fines and $687 million in forfeiture, totaling $777.78 million.

From August 2013 to October 2014, the companies paid ISIS and ANF in exchange for the right to operate a cement plant in Syria, leading to LCS receiving around $70.3 million in revenue, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Lafarge, via LCS, operated a cement plant in Northern Syria from 2010 to 2014. When the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, Lafarge and LCS negotiated arrangements to pay to protect the plant. LCS executives bought raw materials needed to make cement from ISIS-controlled suppliers, paid monthly donations to armed groups so that employees and suppliers could travel across checkpoints, and agreed to pay ISIS based on the volume of cement the LCS sold to its costumers. The Lafarge and LCS executives likened these payments to taxes.

“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,” U.S. Attorney Breon 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. Today, Lafarge has admitted and taken responsibility for its staggering crime. Never before has a corporation been charged with providing material support and resources to foreign terrorist organizations. This unprecedented charge and resolution reflect the extraordinary crimes committed and demonstrates that corporations that take actions in contravention of our national security interests in violation of the law will be held to account.”