Pagers used in Lebanon detonations shipped by Bulgarian firm, Hungarian company was ‘only used on paper’

Telex cited Zoltan Kovacs, the state secretary for international communication and relations, as saying that the company in question “is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary” and that the devices themselves “have never been in Hungary”.

Hsu Ching-Kuang, the CEO of Gold Apollo which distributes the device, told a press conference on Wednesday that the AR-924 pagers ordered by Hezbollah were manufactured under license by a company called BAC. Hsu and the company’s first official statement only said that the pagers were manufactured by a European company with an office in Taipei, but later BAC Consulting Ltd. of Budapest was specifically named as the company responsible for the production and distribution of the devices.

Telex’s sources said BAC Consulting Ltd. was merely an intermediary in the transaction and had not actually carried out any activities itself. The company does not even have an office and is only registered at the address of a headquarters service provider, Telex said.

“Sources with knowledge of the case told us that the managing director of BAC Consulting, Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, was in contact with a Bulgarian company, Norta Global Ltd, based in Sofia. Although on paper it was BAC Consulting that signed the contract with Gold Apollo, Norta Global Ltd. was actually the one behind the deal,” the portal said.

It added that it was not BAC Consulting, but rather the Bulgarian company, that imported the pagers from Taiwan, and was also the one that arranged the sale and delivery of the equipment to Hezbollah.

The Bulgarian company is owned by a Norwegian individual and is registered to a headquarters service provider, Telex said. It was founded in April 2022 and, on paper, is engaged in project management, but it is presumed that it does not manufacture anything.

According to Telex’s sources, Barsony-Arcidiacono only acted as an intermediary, and the Hungarian company was only needed to cover up the Bulgarian thread.

Telex cited Barsony-Arcidiacono confirming to NBC News that her company had indeed worked with Gold Apollo, but when asked about the pagers and the detonations, she said, “I don’t make pagers. I’m just the middleman. I think you misunderstood the situation.”

The portal cited EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano as warning against jumping to conclusions. “The reasons and how it was done, how it was organised, needs to be investigated,” he said.

It cited the Government Information Centre (KTK) as saying in response to a query by news portal Hvg.hu that “there is freedom of enterprise in Hungary. The company in question has never received any assignment for any projects from the Hungarian government and has never applied for any authorisation by the government. It operates as a private business.”

DK calls for convening national security committee over Lebanon pager blasts

The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) has proposed convening parliament’s national security committee over the mass pager attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon. DK leader Ferenc Gyurcsany told an online press conference on Thursday that “a Hungarian intermediary company … acting as a front company for the Israeli secret services” was linked to the case.

“Israel and the government of [Benjamin] Netanyahu … is in a close alliance with [the Hungarian] government,” Gyurcsany said. “So one possibility is that our ally established a front company in Hungary without our knowing, using it to attack a terrorist organisation.”

“An obvious consequence of this is that if this becomes public, Hungary, too, can become a target of terrorist attacks,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right if we didn’t know about this.”

Gyurcsany said it was “also a problem” if the government had known that Israel’s secret services were using Hungary as a “front”, adding that he did not believe “Hungary should have authorised this”.

Zoltan Kovacs, the state secretary for international communication and relations, said on Facebook on Wednesday that the matter “poses no security risk to Hungary”. The Hungarian authorities, he said, “have confirmed that the company in question is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary”. “It has one manager registered at its declared address, and the referenced devices never entered Hungary,” he added.