Mysterious Trail of Exploding Hezbollah Pagers

The search for those responsible for the production, sale and distribution of pagers has led to the discovery of companies that were founded in recent years, leaving no paper traces of their operations and run by mysterious businessmen with a shady online presence and little experience in the telecommunications industry.

For decades, Iran and the militant groups it supports, such as Hezbollah, have used front companies in the Middle East and the Mediterranean to obtain funds and equipment while avoiding sanctions. Israel, in turn, has created its own shadowy networks to infiltrate supply chains used by Iran and the militant groups it supports.

Tuesday’s attack is one of several examples in which Israel appears to have penetrated Hezbollah’s communications supply chain, said a person familiar with Israeli operations abroad. “But this is the first time it’s ended with such a bang,” he said.

People briefed on the operation said Israel breached Hezbollah’s supply chain and laced the devices’ batteries with explosives. The devices were then detonated remotely.

Hezbollah has launched an investigation into the supply chain breach.

Who made pagers?

The trail of pagers began in Taiwan last week, after a label on one of the devices that exploded in Lebanon indicated it was made by Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company. After reporters descended on the company’s offices in the hours after the attack, the company said it did not make the pagers. It said the license to make them had been purchased by a little-known Hungarian company called BAC Consulting.

Taiwan prosecutors on Wednesday began an investigation into whether there was a link between Gold Apollo and the attack. National security investigators on Thursday subpoenaed two executives from Gold Apollo and BAC Consulting, which operates in Taiwan under the name Apollo Systems. Authorities raided the companies’ offices in four locations in Taipei on Thursday. Gold Apollo has denied any connection to the attack.

“No concrete evidence was found to suggest that any Taiwanese citizen was involved in the terrorist attack,” prosecutors said on Friday.

Apollo Systems has been renting coworking space in the Taipei area since April for about $90 a month, according to Taiwan Asset Management Corp., which manages the office space. The company was registered in Taiwan in April and its listed activities include selling telecommunications equipment, consulting and translation.

In Hungary, BAC Consulting was registered in 2022 to conduct dozens of businesses, from selling telecommunications equipment to producing computer games. The company, registered in a sleepy residential area in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, had sales of about $600,000 last year.

Only one person was listed as the sole employee and CEO, a woman named Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, who has a complex and broad background. Bársony-Arcidiacono’s LinkedIn account describes her as an expert in funding assessment for the European Commission. The account says she was an intern at the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2008-09. Bársony-Arcidiacono did not respond to requests for comment.

People who claimed to know Bársona-Arcidiacono described her as an elusive figure who often appeared for a while and then disappeared. In Budapest, Bársona-Arcidiacono’s acquaintances said she spoke poor Hungarian, was interested in drawing, traveled frequently, and had not been seen since the beginning of the year.

In mid-week, the BAC Consulting website was taken offline.

Zoltán Kovács, a spokesman for the Hungarian government, said the company was a commercial intermediary. He added that it had no production plant in Hungary and that the pagers had never been in Hungary.

More companies and countries

Hungarian news outlet Telex.hu reported that the pagers were sold to Hezbollah by a Bulgarian company known as Norta Global Ltd. Bulgarian authorities immediately launched an investigation into the company, which was registered in the country’s capital, Sofia, by a Norwegian citizen in April 2022, a month before BAC was registered in Hungary.

Since then, Norta Global has paid BAC Consulting a total of 1.6 million euros, equivalent to $1.8 million, according to people familiar with the Bulgarian investigation.

Bulgaria’s state security agency said no pagers similar to the ones that exploded last week had been manufactured, imported or exported in Bulgaria, but it was investigating the company’s involvement in the case.

The company’s activities are listed as “technology project management,” according to Bulgaria’s corporate registry. However, there is little in Norta Global to suggest it was very active in Bulgaria.

The company has no listed employees and is registered at the same central address in Sofia as about 200 other companies. The company’s email address uses a free Bulgarian email service provider. Its registered phone number is Norwegian and went straight to voicemail.

According to the registry, last year the company’s revenue from consulting activities amounted to about $750,000, and no profit was achieved.

The company’s website was taken offline on Thursday. An archived version advertised services including consulting, technology integration, recruiting and outsourcing.

“Are you looking for an agile company that can help you succeed or find a technology solution that’s right for you? Look no further,” the website says.

The Bulgarian security agency said the company did not carry out financial operations covered by anti-terrorism law and had no business ties with sanctioned individuals.

Norta Global is headed by a Norwegian national listed as Rinson Jose in corporate documents. On a LinkedIn profile of the same name, Jose is listed as an “entrepreneur” at Oslo-based NortaLink, which provides technology consulting services. The URL for its website is not currently in use.

Oslo police said Thursday they had opened an investigation into the matter. Neither Norta Global nor Jose responded to requests for comment.

Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv and Benoit Faucon in London contributed to this article.

Write to Georgi Kantchev at [email protected], Thomas Grove at [email protected], and Joyu Wang at [email protected]