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A Taiwanese pager manufacturer is being scrutinised after devices bearing its logo and name were detonated in a mass attack in Lebanon and Syria.
Tuesday's attacks, which injured thousands of users and killed 12, were aimed at the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The group blamed Israel for the explosions and said it was launching an investigation. Israel has not commented on the incident, in which civilians were also harmed, including a nine-year-old girl.
Experts told The National that Hezbollah's attempt to use older technology to avoid hacking by Israel backfired and that the pagers were probably loaded with an explosive charge.
Israel may have infiltrated the supply chain for Hezbollah's pagers, they said. The New York Times reported that Israel hid explosive material within a new batch before they were imported to Lebanon, citing US and other officials.
It is not yet clear where or when explosives were added to the devices.
Gold Apollo's chief executive and founder said he felt like a “victim” after European brand BAC Consulting KTF, based in Hungary, was granted a licence to use the Gold Apollo name in certain regions.
“There is no problem with pagers exported from Taiwan exploding,” Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement in response to media inquiries, adding that the case is under investigation.
The pagers were brought into Lebanon earlier this year, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters, but it is not yet known when or how they were turned into explosive devices.
Here's what we know so far about the origin of the pagers and the companies involved.
What is Gold Apollo?
Gold Apollo is a Taiwanese firm founded in 1995, producing one-way message devices among more modern technology and radio equipment. It has 40 employees, according to Bloomberg.
However, the company said it does not make the AR-924 model of pager that a Lebanese security source told Reuters was sold to the Lebanese group. It said this was made by a company called BAC Consulting KTF.
Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion, of which Iran-backed Hezbollah reportedly bought 5,000, were made by BAC, a company in Europe.
“The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,” Mr Hsu said at the company's offices in the northern Taiwanese city of New Taipei on Wednesday. He said Gold Apollo had been working with BAC for three years.
Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs said it had no evidence of pagers being shipped to Lebanon. Most of the 260,000 Gold Apollo pagers sent out between January 2022 and August 2024 were sent to Australia and the US, it said in a statement.
What is known about BAC Consulting KTF?
BAC's website was down on Wednesday morning, and the company's address appeared to be a residential street in Budapest.
Google first indexed the site more than 10 years ago, on which the company was advertised as “actively involved in International Relations to examine social science and humanities through an international lens”.
On the pages still available to view on the internet archive Wayback Machine, providing communications devices was not listed as a service, but other interests were wide-ranging, from computer game publishing to IT consulting to crude oil extraction.
Phone calls to the number listed on the site from The National would not connect.
The company's chief executive is listed on its website and her own LinkedIn profile as Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono.
In a phone call with NBC News, Ms Barsony-Arcidiacono denied direct involvement.
“I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,” she said.
Gold Apollo said it authorised “BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in specific regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC”.
Mr Hsu said earlier there had been problems with remittances from the firm. “The remittance was very strange,” he said, adding that payments had come through the Middle East. He did not elaborate further.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government said the devices used in the attack were never in Hungary.
“Hungarian authorities have established that the company in question is a trading-intermediary company, which has no manufacturing or other site of operation in Hungary,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said on Facebook.
