France Investigates Lafarge Executives for Terrorist Financing<br />PARIS — The former chief executive of LafargeHolcim, the world’s largest cement maker,<br />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.<br />Mr. Olsen resigned as chief executive in April after an internal inquiry found<br />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.<br />Since then, French judges have been examining the extent to which top Lafarge executives knew about the payments,<br />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.<br />They are trying to determine whether he and other company managers placed the lives<br />of workers at the cement factory, in northern Syria, in danger during a civil war.<br />Lafarge began producing cement for the Syrian market in 2010 after investing more than 600 million euros, or<br />$708 million at current exchange rates, to refurbish a factory in Jalabiyeh, a town near the Turkish border.<br />In the two years that followed, the area near the factory was occupied by a succession<br />of armed groups, including the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Al Nusra Front.
