Revealing the exact name of the European company that manufactured pagers for Hezbollah

Pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously on September 17 in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding nearly 3,000. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for the sophisticated remote attack.

According to a statement released by Taiwan's Gold Apollo on September 18, the AR-924 pagers were manufactured by their partner, BAC Consulting KFT, based in the Hungarian capital Budapest.

"Under the partnership agreement, we allow BAC to use our brand trademarks to sell products in designated areas, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely BAC's responsibility," Gold Apollo's statement said.

On the same day, Gold Apollo Chairman Hsu Ching-kuang told reporters that his company has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years, but did not provide evidence of the contract.

At around 3:30 p.m. on September 17 (local time), while people were shopping for groceries, sitting in cafes or driving cars and motorbikes, the pagers in their hands or pockets began to heat up and then explode, leaving behind a scene of blood splatter and panic among witnesses.

Many of the victims of the series of explosions are believed to be Hezbollah members, but it remains unclear whether non-Hezbollah members were carrying any of the pagers that exploded.

The explosions occurred mainly in areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence, especially in the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Beqaa area in eastern Lebanon, as well as in Damascus, Syria, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some experts believe explosives were planted in the pagers before they were delivered and used in a sophisticated supply chain infiltration.

The AR-924 pager, advertised as “rugged,” contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications that were advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before it was apparently taken down on September 17 shortly after the vandalism attack. The machine can receive text messages of up to 100 characters.

The manufacturer also claims a battery life of up to 85 days. That would be important in Lebanon, where power outages are common after years of economic recession. Pagers also run on a different wireless network than cell phones, making them more resilient in emergencies—one reason why many hospitals around the world still rely on them.

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (China) said that from the beginning of 2022 to August 2024, Gold Apollo exported 260,000 sets of pagers, including more than 40,000 sets between January and August this year. The ministry said these pagers were mainly exported to European and American countries, and there were no records of Gold Apollo pagers being directly exported to Lebanon.

For Hezbollah, the militant movement's fighters also see pagers as a means to evade Israel's intensive electronic surveillance of Lebanon's mobile phone networks.

“The phone we hold in our hands – I don’t hold a phone in my hand – is a listening device,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned in a speech in February this year.

He then added: “I tell you that the phone in your hand, in your wife’s hand, in your children’s hand, is an agent. It is a deadly agent, not a simple agent. It is a deadly agent that provides specific and precise information.”