Amid Syria’s descent into civil war, Lafarge’s quest to keep its $680 million cement plant running led to secret deals with terrorists—and ultimately, a historic U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecution for aiding ISIS.
The path to the DOJ’s landmark prosecution of Paris-based Lafarge began benignly enough: In 2010, Lafarge built a cement plant in the Jalabiyeh region of Syria for $680 million—the same year the Arab Spring began in Tunisia. The plant, a subsidiary called Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), operated at a loss much of the time, according to Holcim.
