Tracking Exploding Pagers Used in Alleged Israeli Attack on Hezbollah

Updated September 18, 2024 at 10:19 AM EST

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Entrepreneur Hsu Ching-kuang was once praised in Taiwan for reviving the archaic electronic pager, partly by switching to selling to foreign governments. At one point, he claimed his company, Gold Apollo, dominated 99 percent of the Dutch pager market and even had the FBI as a client.

But he faced a barrage of police and journalists outside his office in northern Taiwan on Wednesday after Gold Apollo was linked to hundreds of pagers belonging to members of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that exploded simultaneously Tuesday in Lebanon and parts of Syria, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000, according to Lebanon’s health minister. A U.S. official told NPR that Israel told the U.S. it carried out the attack. The Israeli government has not commented publicly.

Hsu confirmed that it was his company’s brand on the pagers. “It’s very embarrassing,” he said. Soon after, more than a dozen Taiwanese police and city officials descended on his company’s office to investigate.

Hsu has denied any involvement in the explosive pagers, telling NPR outside his office in northern Taiwan that a Budapest-based company called BAC Consulting made the devices.

“There was nothing in those devices that we manufactured or exported to them (BAC),” Hsu said, noting that the pagers were “completely different” from his designs and included a chip that Gold Apollo does not use in its pagers.

Reuters and New York Times reported that the pagers were ultimately planted by Israel, citing Lebanese and U.S. officials. But how and when the devices were modified to become lethal is still unclear.

The pager links to relatively unknown companies in Asia and Europe point to a conspiracy that has been years in the making.

European chance

Three years ago, Hsu says, he was approached by a Taiwanese woman Hsu knew only as “Teresa.” The woman posed as a local representative of a Hungarian company called BAC Consulting.

After more than two months of negotiations with Teresa Hsu, he agreed to sign an agreement to sell Gold Apollo pagers to BAC and also allowed BAC to use the Gold Apollo trademark on his own products.

“She had already flown to Europe several times to contact (her colleagues),” Hsu says. He said he was also told that BAC had interests in East Africa as well: “From start to finish, they never mentioned Lebanon.”

Annual reports for the past two years, downloaded from the online business registration portal of the Hungarian Ministry of Justice, showed the company was registered in May 2022, with BAC’s sole owner being Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono. The company’s latest annual accounts, signed in May of this year, show a balance sheet of just over $320.

Bársona-Arcidiacono’s LinkedIn profile describes her as “CEO, Strategic Advisor & Business Developer” and includes a link to BAC Consulting. On another professional networking site, is mentioned as an “independent expert in the field of natural resources and sustainable development.”

“If you have a challenge and you like to think outside the box, contact me and we will solve it together” – Bársony-Arcidiacono he said February job site. “A good understanding of local issues and a network of colleagues in different areas are important for success.”

The cellphone number belonging to a person whose profile photo matches the one on Bársona-Arcidiacono’s LinkedIn profile was unavailable when an NPR reporter called.

“Strange” payments

About a year after BAC signed the deal with Gold Apollo, Hsu said they approached him with an unusual request: They wanted to design their own products but put his company’s trademark on them.

“They said they wanted to develop a group of engineers,” Hsu recalls BAC telling him. “I told them, ‘The stuff you’re making is neither easy to use nor aesthetically pleasing. Why not just use my products?’”

Hsu also noticed that their money transfers were “strange.”

Although BAC is headquartered in the Hungarian capital, Hsu said the company paid Gold Apollo from a Middle Eastern bank account that had been blocked at least once by their bank in Taiwan.

“It was very inconvenient. You have to deal with these risks when you trade globally,” Hsu recalls. He says his accountant spent an entire week working to unblock the payments.

Gold Apollo last shipped components to BAC earlier this year, Hsu said. The AR-924 model pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria were new and had recently been acquired by Hezbollah in February, the Associated Press reported.

Hsu insists that none of the exploding pagers were manufactured by his company in Taiwan: “We did not manufacture these devices and we did not export a single one of them (to BAC),” he emphasizes.

Taiwan’s economic ministry says it has no records of Taiwanese companies exporting pagers directly to Lebanon between 2022 and 2024 and has deemed the Gold Apollo pagers as “modified after export,” according to a statement. NPR could not verify the ministry’s assessment.