A view of a Lafarge Cement plant is seen in Paris, France on September 8, 2021.
Julien Mattia | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Lafarge Cement has agreed to plead guilty Tuesday and pay a fine of $777.8 million to U.S. federal criminal charges related to the French company’s involvement in payments to the terror organization ISIS to keep a plant operating in Syria.
The nearly $17 million payments to ISIS were made from 2012 through 2014, and occurred even as the terror group was kidnapping and killing Westerners.
The investigation that led to Lafarge being indicted in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, is ongoing. No individuals have been charged.
The Department of Justice has scheduled an 11 a.m. ET press conference on the case in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Lafarge was purchased by Switzerland-based Holcim in 2015.
Holcim in a statement to CNBC said it supports the plea agreement that Lafarge reached with DOJ.
“None of the conduct involved Holcim, which has never operated in Syria, or any Lafarge operations or employees in the United States, and it is in stark contrast with everything that Holcim stands for,” Holcim said in that statement.
“The DOJ noted that former Lafarge SA and [Lafarge Cement Syria] executives involved in the conduct concealed it from Holcim before and after Holcim acquired Lafarge SA, as well as from external auditors,” Holcim said.
“When Holcim learned of the allegations from media reports in 2016, Holcim proactively and voluntarily conducted an extensive investigation, led by a major U.S. law firm and overseen by the Board of Directors. It publicly disclosed the principal investigative findings in 2017 and separated from former Lafarge SA and LCS executives who were involved in these events.”
Lafarge was indicted by French authorities in 2018 in connection with the ISIS payments on charges of being complicit in crimes against humanity.
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