Contest over the economy was one of the prime reasons for the prolongation of the war and its attending horrors as the plunder of meagre resources intensified. The TRC, in its report based on its mandate of investigating economic crimes, has listed several individuals and institutions it concludes are guilty of economic crimes. Excerpts:

Lone Star Communications Corporation (LSC), Liberia's only mobile phone service provider from 2000 to 2004, allegedly committed an array of economic crimes including tax evasion, bribery and telecommunications fraud. LSC was owned by two corporations: (a) Investcom Global Limited, a Lebanese corporation, that owned 60% of LSC; and (b) PLC Limited, a corporation owned jointly by Charles Taylor and Benoni Urey and Emmanuel Shaw II, two of Taylor's financial advisors. Because Liberia has no functioning, land-based telephone system, LSC greatly profited from its status as the only company in the telecommunications sector.

After his election as President, Charles Taylor also received various large payments from known diamond smugglers as "political donations". In May 2001, Abbas Macky, an associate of diamond smuggler Aziz Nassour, paid $600,000 to Taylor's National Patriotic Party (NPP). In July 2001, Nassour reportedly paid Taylor $250,000 cash as a "political donation" at a political rally in Maryland County. After Taylor accused NPP Chairman Cyril Allen of stealing some of the of the money, he was removed from his position in the party.

Lone Star Communications Corporation (LSC), Liberia's only mobile phone service provider from 2000 to 2004, allegedly committed an array of economic crimes including tax evasion, bribery and telecommunications fraud. LSC was owned by two corporations: (a) Investcom Global Limited, a Lebanese corporation, that owned 60% of LSC; and (b) PLC Limited, a corporation owned jointly by Charles Taylor and Benoni Urey and Emmanuel Shaw II, two of Taylor's financial advisors. Because Liberia has no functioning, land-based telephone system, LSC greatly profited from its status as the only company in the telecommunications sector.

In 1999, PLC Limited obtained an exclusive license to operate a global system for mobile communications (GSM) service without entering into a competitive bidding process.

In 2001, Investcom LLC attempted to purchase a GSM license in Liberia. Investcom LLC is a subsidiary of Investcom Holdings S.A. and Investcom Global, two corporations owned by Lebanese nationals and incorporated in Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands, respectively. The government of Liberia informed Investcom that no GSM license was available and that the company should purchase 60% of PLC Limited to enter the telecommunications market in Liberia. As a result, Investcom LLC allegedly acquired 60% of PLC Limited for $30,000 USD. Between 2000 to 2004, LSC generated approximately $36 million USD in revenue.

It also allegedly engaged in unlawful price fixing and charged $.50 US cents per minute for local calls and $1.25 USD per minute for calls to the United States. LSC also charged $65 USD for a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, which is mandatory for all mobile phone users on the network, and allegedly inflated the cost of scratch cards, which provide subscribers with pre-paid phone minutes. After LSC's monopoly on the Liberian telecommunications market was broken in 2004, the price of calls fell to $.20 cents USD and $.40 cents USD, for local and United States calls, respectively.

In 1997, shortly after Charles Taylor became President, Liberia established an exclusive rice importation agreement with Bridgeway Corporation (BC), a subsidiary of Haddad Group International and owned by George Haddad. BC then began to provide approximately 75% of Liberia's rice. The company allegedly earned tax credits in exchange for selling rice to the government of Liberia. Charles Taylor used BC imported rice as a gift for former NPFL soldiers and his supporters.