A Taiwanese pager company said on Wednesday (September 18) it did not make the pagers that exploded and killed nine people and wounded several thousand in Lebanon on Tuesday.
Citing American and other officials briefed on the operation, The New York Times reported that Israel had hidden explosives in pagers that were made in Taiwan and ordered by Hezbollah from New Taipei City-based Gold Apollo.
Gold Apollo chairperson Ching-kuang Hsu (許清光) told reporters on Tuesday his company had signed a licensing deal with a company that made the pagers called BAC.
“According to the agreement, we authorize 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,” Gold Apollo said in a statement. “We only provide brand trademark authorization and have no involvement in the design manufacturing of this product,” the company added.
In the statement Gold Apollo identified BAC as BAC Consulting Kft., with an address in Budapest. A website with the same company name and address as that on the statement released makes no mention of any relationship with Gold Apollo or of selling pagers, but does discuss a project called “Bridging Technology and Innovation from Asia,” including selling telecommunication products into developing countries.
Around 3:30 p.m. local time on September 17, a massive attack was conducted on Hezbollah by an unknown party, presumed to be Israel. Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives exploded nearly simultaneously. At least nine people were killed in the attacks and almost 3,000 thousand injuries are reported.
Hezbollah uses pagers for communication due to the perceived risk of cell phones being hacked or tracked. Experts believe the supply chain of the pagers was infiltrated and explosives inserted at some point.
Citing Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwanese newspaper the Commercial Times reported that from January to August of this year, 40,929 sets of pagers were exported by Gold Apollo, mainly to European and American countries. There have been no reports of explosions of these products as mentioned in the media, and there are no records of direct exports to Lebanon, the ministry said.
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