(Times of Israel) A report Thursday alleged that a Hungarian firm that apparently supplied pagers used by Hezbollah was secretly set up by Israeli spies as part of a widescale operation that appeared to culminate this week when the devices exploded, killing several and maiming thousands of Hezbollah operatives and others in Lebanon and Syria.
The New York Times claimed that rather than merely managing to tamper with the devices at some stage of their production or distribution, Israel actually “manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.”
The report was the latest to seemingly pull the covers back on what is widely believed to have been a secret Israeli operation that burst into the open Tuesday as thousands of devices blew up in Hezbollah strongholds.
Then on Wednesday, hundreds of walkie-talkies used by the group exploded as well, sowing fresh fears across Lebanon and underlining how much remains unknown about the apparent plot.
Citing three unnamed intelligence officers with knowledge of the operation, The New York Times reported that BAC Consulting was part of a front set up by figures in Israeli intelligence.
Two other shell companies were also created to help mask the link between BAC and the Israelis, according to the report.
The company was listed in Hungary as a limited liability company in May 2022, though a website for BAC Consulting was officially registered almost two years earlier, in October 2020, according to internet domain records.
As of April 2021, the company website offered political and business consulting, with the firm changing addresses and expanding its offerings at least three times by 2024, archival research by The Times of Israel showed.
According to the New York Times, the company supplied other firms with pagers as well, though only the ones transferred to Hezbollah were fitted with batteries that contained explosive materiel known as PETN.
The devices first began to reach Lebanon in 2022, according to the newspaper, with production ramping up as Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah denounced the use of cellphones due to concerns they could be tracked by Israel.
“The phone in your hands, in your wife’s hands, and in your children’s hands is the agent… Bury it. Put it in an iron box and lock it,” Nasrallah told supporters in February, the New York Times report noted, and it added: “Israeli intelligence officials saw an opportunity.”
As Hezbollah increasingly relied on the explosive-laced devices, Israeli intelligence officers saw them as “buttons” that could be pressed at any time, setting off the explosions that rocked Lebanon Tuesday, according to the Times.
The pagers that exploded in Lebanon carried the logo of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo, which said BAC was authorized to use its branding. However it said “the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC.”
BAC’s listed CEO, Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, told NBC news that the firm, which took its website down Wednesday, had nothing to do with manufacturing the pagers.
