Iraq News

Lafarge offices searched over Syria business links

French investigators searched the offices of French-Swiss cement maker Lafarge on Tuesday (November 14th), the company said, as part of an enquiry into financial links to extremist groups in Syria, including the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS).

"French investigators are in the process of investigating our offices," a Lafarge spokeswoman told AFP, confirming a report to that effect by France Inter radio.

"We are co-operating fully with investigators, but we cannot make any further comment on this ongoing inquiry," she said.

A source close to the case said Belgian police were conducting a similar search at the offices of one of Lafarge's subsidiaries in Brussels.

Since June, three French judges have been investigating reported money transfers by Lafarge to groups in Syria, including ISIS, to keep operations up and running at its Jalabiya cement works in northern Syria in 2013 and 2014.

Lafarge clung on in Syria for two years after most French companies had left as ISIS made territorial gains, taking over the Jalabiya plant in September 2014.

To ensure protection of its staff between 2013 and 2014, Lafarge Cement Syria paid between $80,000 and $100,000 a month to various armed groups, including $20,000 to ISIS, according to a source close to the investigation.

The French treasury opened an investigation a year ago after daily newspaper Le Monde reported that Lafarge in Paris knew of the reported arrangements.

Lafarge, which in 2015 merged with Swiss counterpart Holcim, has already admitted to "unacceptable mistakes committed in Syria".

A report by the French national customs judicial department has concluded that the company "made payments to jihadist groups" to allow the plant to stay on stream and validated the transactions using false accounting documents.

A statement from Lafarge Tuesday said it "strongly condemned the mistakes made in Syria" and had taken measures to ensure they could not be repeated.

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