France Investigates Lafarge Executives for Terrorist Financing
PARIS — The former chief executive of LafargeHolcim, the world’s largest cement maker,
and five other top officials are being formally investigated as part of a government inquiry into whether the company helped finance the Islamic State militant group and other armed factions while operating a factory in Syria.
Mr. Olsen resigned as chief executive in April after an internal inquiry found
that managers of Lafarge’s Syrian plant had paid armed groups to allow employees to move to and from the factory so that it could continue operating.
Since then, French judges have been examining the extent to which top Lafarge executives knew about the payments,
and whether the company may have bought oil linked to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in violation of United Nation sanctions and a 2011 European Union embargo.
They are trying to determine whether he and other company managers placed the lives
of workers at the cement factory, in northern Syria, in danger during a civil war.
Lafarge began producing cement for the Syrian market in 2010 after investing more than 600 million euros, or
$708 million at current exchange rates, to refurbish a factory in Jalabiyeh, a town near the Turkish border.
In the two years that followed, the area near the factory was occupied by a succession
of armed groups, including the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Al Nusra Front.