French construction giant Lafarge pleads guilty to funding Isis and is ordered to pay almost $800m

Lafarge Cement paid the terror group $17m to protect its plant in Syria, Justice Department says

A French cement company will pay $778m in fines after it pled guilty to funding Isis as the terror group was killing western hostages, the Justice Department has announced.

Lafarge Cement admitted to conspiring to provide material support to the terror organisation in a federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday. The company paid Isis $17m between August 2013 and October 2014 to keep its cement plant in Syria running, according to Reuters.

“Lafarge SA and LCS have accepted responsibility for the actions of the individual executives involved, whose behavior was in flagrant violation of Lafarge’s Code of Conduct,” the company, which is now known as Lafarge Holcim, said in a statement. “We deeply regret that this conduct occurred and have worked with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve this matter.”

After an internal investigation, Lafarge admitted in 2017 that it had paid the terror group to protect its staff.

US prosecutors accused the company of ignoring Isis’s human right abuses and continuing to pay the militant group as it was torturing kidnapped Westerners.

Lafarge Holcin, the world’s largest cement maker, has pleaded guilty to funding terror group Isis (Associated Press)

“The defendants routed nearly six million dollars in illicit payments to two of the world’s most notorious terrorist organisations — ISIS and al-Nusrah Front in Syria — at a time those groups were brutalising innocent civilians in Syria and actively plotting to harm Americans,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press. “There is simply no justification for a multi-national corporation authorizing payments to designated terrorist organisation.”

The Department of Justice described the case as the first of its kind.

The US investigation into Lafarge’s activities in Syria that led to Tuesday’s indictment is continuing. No individuals have been charged.

Lafarge Holcim, the largest cement company in the world, said in a statement that the actions of the individual executives involved “was in flagrant violation” of its code of conduct.

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

The company was indicted by French authorities in 2018 in connection with the payments to Isis.

Lafarge Holcim was formed in 2015 out of a $50bn (£44bn) merger of French company Lafarge and Switzerland’s Holcim.