DOJ Has Sat on the $777M Lafarge ISIS Fine for 3½ Years. Gold Star Families Are Still Waiting.

The case was charged in the Eastern District of New York under case number 1:22-cr-00444-WFK, before U.S. District Judge William F. Kuntz II. The U.S. Attorney was Breon Peace (D-appointed); the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division was Matthew G. Olsen; the Deputy Attorney General who announced the plea was Lisa O. Monaco (D). The charging statute was 18 U.S.C. § 2339B (providing material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization). The penalty schedule: $90,780,000 in criminal fine, plus $687,000,000 in forfeiture — a total of $777.78 million.

The factual record entered with the plea is uncontested. Between August 2013 and October 2014, Lafarge Cement Syria paid roughly $5,920,000 directly to ISIS and the al-Nusrah Front through Syrian intermediaries — a series of cash “donations,” per-truck protection payments, and revenue-sharing schemes — to keep its Jalabiyah cement plant open and operating after the Syrian Civil War engulfed northern Syria. Counting raw-material suppliers Lafarge used who themselves paid ISIS, the total ISIS-linked spend was approximately $17,000,000. Lafarge Cement Syria generated roughly $70,300,000 in revenue from the conduct period.

“Lafarge and its leadership had every reason to know exactly with whom they were dealing — and they didn't flinch. Instead, Lafarge forged ahead, working with ISIS to keep operations open, undercut competitors, and maximize revenue.”

Deputy AG Lisa O. Monaco · Lafarge plea announcement · EDNY · October 18, 2022

The historical context is sharper than it sounds in a press release. Lafarge had purchased the Jalabiyah plant in 2007 for roughly $680,000,000. When the Syrian conflict broke out in 2011, every other Western multinational pulled out. Lafarge stayed. It evacuated its expatriate staff in September 2014 — nearly a year after ISIS had taken control of the territory around the plant, and after Lafarge had already been paying ISIS for more than a year. The plea agreement makes clear that Lafarge executives in Paris knew. They approved the payments. They booked the revenue.

The petitions on file with the Department of Justice come from approximately 1,000 plaintiffs — Gold Star families of US service members killed in action in the ISIS campaign, surviving wounded warriors, and American civilians injured in ISIS-claimed attacks. The DOD reports approximately 17 US service members killed in action in Operation Inherent Resolve, the campaign to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria, in addition to several hundred wounded.

Two of the lead petitioners put names and faces on the file:

“It's very overwhelming. Kenton struggles mentally and physically with his own battles, and the kids and I, we have our own struggles.”

Lindsey Stacy · wife of CPO Kenton Stacy, USN EOD · Fox News, May 23, 2026

“To the current Department of Justice, I would say: make things right.”

Hailey Dayton · daughter of SCPO Scott Cooper Dayton, USN EOD (KIA Ayn Issa, Syria, Nov 24, 2016) · Fox News, May 23, 2026

The legal vehicle the plaintiffs are using is 28 C.F.R. Part 9, the federal asset-forfeiture remission regulation. It authorizes the Attorney General to distribute forfeited funds to identifiable victims of the underlying conduct. The plaintiffs' claim against Lafarge itself runs under 18 U.S.C. § 2333, the civil-remedy provision of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which authorizes treble damages for U.S. nationals injured by acts of international terrorism. The plaintiffs cannot recover under the USVSST Fund(Justice for U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act, 34 U.S.C. § 20144) because ISIS is not designated a state sponsor. The remission petition is their only realistic path. Action requires the Attorney General — now Acting AG Todd Blanche (R) — to sign.

Two members of the Arizona delegation have been the loudest in Congress on Lafarge remission. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-5), former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, sent a multi-member letter to the Department of Justice in February 2025 requesting a status update on the petitions for remission and pressing the agency to move. Rep. Abraham Hamadeh (R-AZ-8) — an Army Reserve intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan, now on the House Armed Services Committee and the Veterans' Affairs Committee — sent follow-up letters to AG Pam Bondi (R) on February 26, 2025 and September 18, 2025.

On February 11, 2026, at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Biggs put the question directly to AG Bondi.

“In February 2025, my colleagues and I sent you a letter urging the department to review the petitions for remission submitted by the families of those fallen service members, including several of my constituents. The previous administration ignored these victims and our requests and left their petitions unresolved.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-5) · House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing · February 11, 2026

“Congressman, we are aware of that and we're committed to doing everything we can to support the victims and work with you. Thank you for that question.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) · response to Rep. Biggs · House Judiciary · February 11, 2026

That was three months ago. No distribution has been authorized. Bondi has since stepped aside; the file sits with Acting AG Todd Blanche (R). The full clip of the Biggs exchange is on the C-SPAN public record (user clip 5192794).

For the duration of the Biden administration, DOJ's working justification for not distributing the Lafarge forfeiture money was that a parallel French criminal proceeding against Lafarge SA was still pending in Paris. That proceeding closed on April 13, 2026, when the Paris Criminal Court issued its verdict. Lafarge S.A. was convicted of financing terrorism and breach of EU sanctions. Former CEO Bruno Lafont was sentenced to six years in prison plus a €225,000 fine. The company was fined €1.12 million plus a €30 millionasset confiscation. Eight former executives were convicted in total — including Christian Herrault (5 years), Bruno Pescheux (5 years), and Frédéric Jolibois (3 years).

“I think the ruling by the court in France is significant generally, because it's the first time in many, many years that a corporation, and not just the corporation, but executives at a corporation have been held to account.”

Todd Toral · plaintiffs' lead counsel · partner, Jenner & Block · USMC veteran

The Paris ruling matters in two distinct ways. First, it answers the DOJ's stated rationale for delay: the parallel case is now closed. Second, it ends the diplomatic awkwardness France argued about previously — that an American forfeiture distribution would preempt a sovereign French prosecution. The French prosecution has now concluded with conviction. Nothing remains pending. Distribution authority sits with the Attorney General of the United States.

The case has moved primarily on social media within congressional offices and the national-security press corps. Below are the three X accounts most closely tracking the file, with paraphrased summaries of their public posture as of late May 2026.

On Truth Social, the story has surfaced through DOJ-aligned voices and through the Trump administration's broader victim-rights posture. We have not located a verified post from @realDonaldTrump or @TheJusticeDept directly addressing the Lafarge file by name. The cards below reflect, in paraphrase, the public administration posture on related DOJ remission cases.

The constituency on the other side of the file is unambiguous. Gold Star families. Wounded warriors. American civilians who were maimed or who lost children to a terrorist organization that a French multinational chose to keep paying for one more cement-plant fiscal year. The corporation has been convicted twice over — once in New York, once in Paris. The money is in the bank. The Attorney General signs.