Behind every trade that happens, there is an organized and well coordinated supply chain and logistics cycle. Every layer of the cycle plays a significant role in delivering the products to its end customer. The recent Lebanon pager blasts across multiple cities reveals the hidden layers in the supply chain network.
Security sources from Lebanon say that Israeli spy intelligence Mossad is believed to be the mastermind behind these attacks. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the accusations.
Hezbollah officials have accused Israel of targeting their communication devices. “The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means, even with any device or scanner.” An unnamed source said that 3,000 of the pagers exploded when “a coded message was sent” to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.
One must be wondering why Lebanon’s are still using pagers when the world is moving forward with 5G technology. Well, it’s not the common people who are using this. The pagers are used as a main communication device by the members of the Hezbollah group. Since the attack of Hamas in October last year on Israel, there has been escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah of Lebanon.
Hezbollah chief has earlier warned their members to disown the smartphones and find 5G technologies, as he believed that they would become a soft target of the Israeli intelligence. Moving a step forward, the group transition to using pagers for secure communication. Dating back to three months from today, the Hezbollah group has ordered 5000 pagers from a Taiwanese company named Gold Apollo.
The company’s founder, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters, that the AR-24 Model pagers that expolded in Lebanon were made by another company licensed to use its brand.
Gold Apollo founder, identified that the BAC Consulting company, based in Hungary is authorized to use Gold Apollo’s logo for product sales in certain regions.
However, BAC Consulting Chief Executive Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono confirmed that her company worked with Gold Apollo. But stated that their company didn`t make any pagers, and they are just an intermediary in the manufacturing of pagers delivered.
Hungarian Justice Ministry records show that a firm with the name BAC Consulting was registered as a new company on May 21, 2022. Its main activities listed retail trade of telecommunications products, as well as management consulting, jewelry making and cultivation of fruit.
A record from May 2, 2020, suggests that a company of the same name had existed in the past and was shut down in 2020.
Zoltán Kovács, a spokesperson for the Hungarian prime minister, said on X that authorities have confirmed that BAC Consulting was a trading intermediary that was not manufacturing or operating in Hungary and that “the referenced devices have never been in Hungary.”
Taiwan’s Economic Affairs Ministry said on Wednesday that Gold Apollo had exported 260,000 pagers from 2022 to August 2024, primarily to European and American markets. In a statement, it said there had been no reports of explosions related to those products and that there were no records of the company exporting pagers directly to Lebanon.
So what remains as as a puzzle is “Was this batch of pagers actually tampered in the supply chain cycle? ….. Did another manufacturer produce them and simply label them with the Apollo brand? …….Did Israel float shell companies across various countries, seizing the opportunity to overpower the militant Hezbollah group by counterfeiting those products by deceptive means. This part is still under investigation by the authorities.
N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, a technical intelligence consulting firm said that. “The scale suggests a complex supply-chain attack, rather than a scenario in which devices were intercepted and modified in transit,” he said on X.