A French cement company with plants around the world (including the Lehigh Valley) pleaded guilty to paying millions of dollars to the Islamic State group to keep a plant operational in Syria, even as the militant group was torturing kidnapped Westerners.
NEW YORK — 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 company had constructed a $680 million plant in northern Syria in 2011, and facing competition from cheaper cement imported from Turkey, regarded the payments to IS as a way to ensure the continued operations of the plant and to protect its employees and the transport of raw materials into the facility.
The payments came at a time when other companies were pulling operations out of the region and at a time when beheading videos released as publicity by IS made clear to the world the Islamic State’s barbaric actions. The allegations involve conduct that was earlier investigated by authorities in France. Lafarge had previously acknowledged funneling money to Syrian armed organizations in 2013 and 2014 to guarantee safe passage for employees and supply its plant.
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