French company to pay more than $700 million and plead guilty to bribing ISIS as terror group killed westerners

Lafarge Cement has agreed to plead guilty Tuesday and pay a fine of more than $700 million to U.S. federal criminal charges related to the French company's involvement in payments to the terror organization ISIS to keep a plant operating in Syria.

The nearly $17 million payments to ISIS were made from 2012 through 2014, and occurred even as the terror group was kidnapping and killing westerners, NBC News reported.

The investigation that led to Lafarge being indicted in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, is ongoing. No individuals have been charged.

The Department of Justice has scheduled an 11 a.m. ET press conference on the case in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Lafarge was purchased by Switzerland-based Holcim in 2015.

The company had no immediate comment on the case.

Lafarge was indicted by French authorities in 2018 in connection with the ISIS payments on charges of being complicit in crimes against humanity.

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