Israel launched an attack against Lebanon on Tuesday, detonating thousands of pagers across the country in a move that targeted both Hezbollah members and civilians. The explosions caused widespread panic and confusion, reminiscent of the chaos seen during the 2020 Beirut Port explosion. Hezbollah soon confirmed that Israel was behind the operation.
The attack, involving a Hungarian-based shell company led by a shadowy figure, raised concerns about the extent of foreign influence and operations in the region.
On the first day of the aggression, at least 11 people were killed, and up to 4,000 others were injured, with 400 in critical condition. Following Hezbollah’s vow of retaliation, another wave of explosions rocked Lebanon, this time targeting hundreds of walkie-talkie devices. The subsequent blasts brought the total death toll to 26, with an additional 450 people wounded.
As more information comes to light, new details reveal how Israeli intelligence orchestrated the mass pager explosion attack on Tuesday. It has been discovered that the AR-924 pagers involved in the incident bore the markings of the Taiwan-based company Gold Apollo.
In response to these revelations, reporters quickly sought comments from Gold Apollo’s CEO, Hsu Ching-kuang. He firmly denied involvement, stating, “The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it.”
Gold Apollo’s CEO then shifted the blame to BAC Consulting, a Hungary-based company that had established a business relationship with the Taiwanese firm about three years ago. He emphasized that “the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC.”
However, a deeper investigation into BAC Consulting KFT reveals that the Budapest-based company, registered in May 2022, appears to be nothing more than a shell corporation. It was registered as a limited liability company.
Journalists in Hungary traced BAC’s registered address to an apartment in a residential neighborhood. Upon arrival, they found the office marked only by a printed A4 sheet of paper identifying it as BAC Consulting. According to BBC Verify, 13 companies are registered in the same building.
While Hungarian authorities denied claims that the pagers were produced in the country and maintained that BAC was merely an intermediary, several questionable aspects about BAC Consulting remain unresolved.
To start, BAC Consulting’s website lists its CEO and sole employee as Cristiana Rosaria Bársony-Arcidiacono, a British-educated Italian woman. She denied involvement in manufacturing the pagers, telling NBC News, “I do not make the pagers. I am just the intermediary. I think you got it wrong.”
However, Gold Apollo maintained that BAC Consulting was responsible for manufacturing the pagers, pointing to suspicious transactions from the Middle East. This assertion stands despite BAC Consulting’s lack of known manufacturing capabilities.
Adding to the mystery is Bársony-Arcidiacono herself, an elusive figure that only NBC managed to interview before she disappeared. According to her LinkedIn profile, created in 2019, she speaks seven languages and has held various unrelated roles across Asia, Europe, and Africa.
The BAC Consulting website, now taken down, claimed the company was expanding its operations in Asia to “develop international technology cooperation among countries for the sale of telecommunication products.”
BAC Consulting’s website claimed Bársony-Arcidiacono served on the board of the Earth Child Institute, a sustainability group that does not list her as a member.
A PDF linked to her LinkedIn notes that BAC Consulting began in 2010, raising questions since this predates her completion of studies in the U.K. and overlaps with her time at the French engineering school CentraleSupélec. It also begs the question, why a company supposedly founded in 2010 only registered in 2022.
BAC Consulting documents also claim that its clients included the European Commission and the U.K. Department for International Development (DfID). Bársony-Arcidiacono herself stated she had been employed by both the U.N. and the E.U. Yet, these organizations have denied or claimed no knowledge of working with her or BAC Consulting’s CEO.
Given the conflicting information, it remains unclear where the pagers were manufactured or when they were rigged with explosives. Israel’s Mossad has a well-documented history of establishing shell companies across Europe to support covert operations, a likely scenario with BAC.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47