It appears as an intricate puzzle, where each piece hides another, the story of the communication devices exploded in the hands and pockets of the militiamen Hezbollah. Who produced them? Who tampered with them? Who finally supplied them to the soldiers of the party of God?
The New York Times confirms, citing three informed officials, that behind the entire operation are the Israeli secret services: The Mossad he would not have limited himself to tampering with the pager at some stage of their production or distribution, but would have directly “manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse”. And to do so he would have set up the Hungarian company Bac Consultingwith headquarters in Budapest: this had been indicated as “solely responsible for the design and production” of the pagers in question by the Taiwanese Gold Apolloowner of the trademark (clearly visible in the images of the exploded devices), which denied any involvement. Bac, adds the NYT, also supplied pagers to other companies, but only those intended for Hezbollah had been equipped with batteries with Petn explosive (pentaerythritol tetranitrate). The sources explained to the American newspaper that the Israelis also created two other shell companies to mask the link between the Bac and the Mossad.
The devices would have started arriving in Lebanon as early as 2022, but the Israelis would have increased production after the leader Hassan Nasrallah had ordered his men to avoid using the cell phoneseasily traceable by the Mossad, in favor of the most basic pager or walkie-talkiedistributed in their thousands among officials of the Shiite movement and its Iranian allies.
Also the CEO of Bac on Wednesday, Christian Barsony-Archdeaconhas rejected accusations that it produced the explosive pagers, and the government in Budapest has assured that the company “is a commercial intermediary and has no production sites in Hungary” and that those devices “have never been on Hungarian soil”. Citing anonymous sources, the Hungarian website Telex he in turn indicated another company, this time in Bulgaria: the Norta Globalwith headquarters in Sofiawhich allegedly imported the pagers and arranged their delivery to the Lebanese movement. Founded in April 2022 by Norwegian Rinson Joserecorded a turnover of approximately 650,000 euros last year for administrative consultancy to clients outside the EU. Bulgarian security services (Dans) have already opened an investigation “through the tax authorities and the Ministry of the Interior to clarify the possible role of the company in the supply of communication tools to Hezbollah”. Dans has however ruled out that the devices arrived legally in European Union through Bulgaria: “No customs control with the above products was recorded” by the agents, he reported in a statement. According to Bulgarian TV, only cash flows passed through the country: about 1.6 million euros. Even the Oslo Police announced the opening of a preliminary investigation into Jose’s activities.
Of the walkie-talkie exploded on Wednesday south of Beirut and in other locations of the Lebanon we know – also from the images – that they bore the Japanese brand IcomThe company based in Osaka announced that it had produced and exported the model IC-V82«also in the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014» and to have stopped producing them «about 10 years ago: since then they have not been shipped by our company». «We are investigating the facts regarding this matter – Icom itself assured -. We will publish updated information, as soon as it is available, on our website».
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Japanese company Icom Inc. announced that it has launched an investigation following reports of explosions in Lebanon related to one of its devices, the IC-V82 walkie-talkie. Yoshiki Enomoto, the company’s director, unveiled the device at a press conference at its Osaka headquarters on September 19, 2024, confirming that the company is urgently looking into the matter.
The IC-V82 model, at the center of the reports, has been discontinued for more than a decade. Icom clarified that it had not received any previous reports of such malfunctions and promised to work with authorities to better understand the incident. “The safety of our products and our customers is our top priority,” Enomoto said.
The incident has attracted international attention, especially for its implications in an area already marked by serious tensions. Investigations are still ongoing to determine whether there is a link between the explosions and the company’s devices.