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Lafarge Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Provide Material Support to Foreign Terrorist Organizations
“Protecting national security by fighting international terrorism is mission-critical for the Department of Justice. Fighting corporate crime is also a top Department priority. Today’s charges and guilty pleas should make clear: when companies and their executives engage in conduct that threatens our national security — in this case by fueling a violent terrorist organizations — the Department will respond with resolve. And this case also makes clear – business with terrorists cannot be business as usual.” -Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco
“As the scheme evolved, Lafarge and LCS eventually sought not just permission to operate, but ISIS’s assistance in blocking or taxing competitors who imported cheaper cement into Syria from Turkey. The decision to become business partners with ISIS was extraordinary. Leveraging ISIS to harm competitors defies belief - but it really happened. As a reflection of Lafarge’s awareness that what it was doing was wrong, the defendants also took steps to conceal their scheme. ” -U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York
“...I want to make clear that the Department cannot and will not accept the notion that this kind of conduct is excused where corporations try to maintain business operations in places like Syria, but do not share the idealogy of the terrorist groups. Here, former executives made what they viewed was a business choice to pay designated terrorist groups as a cost of doing business and as a way to gain ground on competitors. U.S. law is clear that this was not their choice to make and the defendants are now facing the consequences. ” -Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen
“...I want to commend the tireless efforts of the investigators, prosecutors, and our international partners on this case. It is because of their work and the work of all of the Department’s agents and prosecutors that I can make this final promise: The Department of Justice will not rest and will not hesitate in our work to protect the American people, in our fight against international terrorism, and in our efforts to hold corporate wrongdoers accountable. ” -Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco
On October 18, 2022 Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York, and Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division attended a press conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York to announce a major national security and corporate criminal enforcement action. A global building materials manufacturer and its subsidiary pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging them with conspiring to provide material support and resources in Northern Syria from 2013 to 2014 to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al-Nusrah Front (ANF), both U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations. Immediately following the defendants’ guilty pleas, U.S. District Judge William F. Kuntz II sentenced the defendants to terms of probation and to pay financial penalties, including criminal fines and forfeiture, totaling $777.78 million.
Updated January 20, 2025
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