Woman’s mother claims exploding pagers are linked to woman under Hungarian government protection

“The Hungarian secret service advised her not to talk to the media,” she said by phone from Sicily.

Hungarian national security authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the AP was unable to independently verify the information.

Two days of attacks this week, first on pagers and then on walkie-talkies, killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 3,000, including civilians. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Cristiana Bársona-Arcidiacono’s company came under scrutiny after Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo said it had authorised BAC Consulting to use its name on the pagers used in the initial attack, but that the Hungarian company was responsible for production and design.

On Wednesday, a Hungarian government spokesman said the pagers supplied to Hezbollah never reached Hungary and that BAC Consultants had only acted as an intermediary.

Beatrix Bársony-Arcidiacono, who also uses the name Beatrice, shares this opinion.

“She is not involved in any way, she was just a middleman. The items did not go through Budapest. … They were not made in Hungary,” she said.

BAC Consulting shares the ground floor of a modest building in Budapest with a number of other businesses, but it has no physical offices and uses the property in the Hungarian capital — like other companies based there — only as an official address, according to a woman who emerged from the building earlier this week and declined to give her name.

The company’s website says it specializes in “environment, development and international affairs.” Its corporate registry lists 118 official functions, including sugar and oil production, jewelry retailing and natural gas extraction.

According to the company’s filing, revenue was $725,000 in 2022 and $593,000 in 2023. Last year, the company spent nearly $324,000, or about 55% of its revenue, on “hardware.”

The company’s website has been unavailable since Wednesday.

Beatrix Bársony-Arcidiacono said her daughter was born in Sicily and studied at the University of Catania before doing a doctorate in London. She worked in Paris and Vienna before moving to Budapest in October 2016 to care for her elderly grandmother.

In May 2022, she founded the company that is at the heart of the pager mystery.

On social media, Bársony-Arcidiacono the younger presents herself as a strategic advisor and business development specialist, with a Ph.D. who has worked for large international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the humanitarian agency CARE, as well as venture capital firms.

The 49-year-old earned her PhD from University College London, where she studied in the early or mid-2000s, according to her LinkedIn page. There, she worked with Ákos Kövér, a Hungarian physicist and now professor emeritus, who confirmed her acceptance.

Kövér said of Bársony-Arcidiacono in an email to the AP: “We also published several joint articles during that time. I am not aware of her other activities; as far as I know, she has not done any scientific work since then.”

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Spike reported from Budapest, Hungary. El Deeb reported from Beirut.