Bulgaria announced on Thursday that it is opening an investigation into a Sofia-based company reportedly linked to the sale of thousands of pagers that were packed with explosives by Israeli intelligence agents and blown up across Lebanon on Tuesday.
Preliminary reports name Norta Global Ltd to the sale of pagers to Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, with Hungarian-based shell company BAC Consulting acting as an "intermediary."
"BAC Consulting Kft was involved in the transaction as a simple intermediary. So much so that the company itself did not actually carry out any activities, it does not have an office, it is only reported to a home provider," Hungarian news agency Telex reported on Wednesday.
Owned by Norwegian citizen Rinson Jose, Norta Global was founded in April 2022 and is located at a residential address in the Bulgarian capital. Like its Hungarian counterpart, Norta Global is registered with a "headquarters service provider," which hosts 196 other companies.
Bulgarian state security agency, DANS, announced on Thursday that it is working with the interior ministry to probe the role of an unnamed company registered in Bulgaria in the terror attacks that rocked Lebanon this week.
Furthermore, Bulgaria's state security agency said it "did not detect any shipments" of the pagers on Bulgarian territory.
According to intelligence officials who spoke with the New York Times (NYT), the attacks that left dozens killed and thousands injured in Lebanon were the result of a "complex and long in the making" Israeli operation.
BAC Consulting reportedly served as a front to manufacture thousands of pagers on behalf of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo that were acquired by Lebanon's Hezbollah earlier this year.
"BAC did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN," three intelligence officers who spoke with the NYT are quoted as saying.
Exploding pagers could now be anywhere... and beyond Lebanon.
"At least two other shell companies were created to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers," the report states.
