Hungarian pager manufacturer denies involvement in Lebanon attack, takes website offline
The Hungarian company BAC, allegedly involved in the production of the pagers purchased by the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, has denied involvement in the explosions that took place on Tuesday.
“I don’t make pagers. I’m just a broker. I think you’ve got the wrong person,” CEO Christiana Arcidiacono-Barsony reportedly told Italian media, without providing any further information as to where the pagers were actually manufactured and by whom.
Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs confirmed that BAC did not manufacture the pagers.
“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,” Kovacs said. “It has one head of operations in Hungary on its listed address and the devices referenced have never been to Hungary.”
BAC was identified as the company responsible for producing and selling the exploding pagers by the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo.
After pagers' design was found to be consistent with those made under Gold Apollo’s brand name, the company's president, Hsu Ching-Kuang said in an official statement: “This product is not ours.”
“We only provide the brand name for approval; we have no involvement in the design or production,” he added.
He also said that “the remittance was very strange,” arriving via the Middle East.
In addition to BAC's CEO denying any involvement, BAC has removed its website.
BAC's website noted its work with the European Union, the tech sector in Asia, and other projects, but “the attached descriptions are vague,” in some cases give no “specifics or named clients,” and provide “no mention of specific devices or pagers,” Ynet News reported.
The website also stated that its CEO previously worked for the EU and different branches of the United Nations.
Thus far, reports indicate that the pager explosions killed at least 12 people, injuring approximately 2,800.
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
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