A federal raid of Caterpillar Inc. offices last month drew instant connections between the global headquarters in Downtown Peoria and the company’s Swiss subsidiary in Geneva — the entity at the center of the company’s controversial strategy to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
But recent comments by a Caterpillar official and the mission of one of the federal agencies investigating the company also lend new significance to years-old questions about Caterpillar’s business dealings in countries deemed state sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.
Since 2010, Caterpillar has faced pointed inquiries from investors, activists and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into its business interests in three sanctioned countries: Sudan, Syria and Iran.
