Search for origins of pager attack in Lebanon expands to Bulgaria and Norway

(Correction: Removed reference to attorney Vladimir Kuzmanov, who has no affiliation with Norta Global, Ltd and was misidentified.)

By Nerijus Adomaitis, Krisztina Than and James Pearson

OSLO/BUDAPEST/LONDON (Reuters) – Bulgaria and Norway became the focus of a global manhunt on Thursday for the suppliers of the thousands of pagers for Hezbollah that exploded in Lebanon this week, dealing a fatal blow to the militant group.

Security sources said Israel was responsible for Tuesday's explosions, which killed 12 people and injured more than 2,300. This further escalated the conflict between the two sides. Israel has not commented directly on the attacks.

How and with whose help the pager attack was carried out is not yet known, although there are possible traces in Taiwan, Hungary and Bulgaria.

It is unclear how and when the pagers were weaponized to detonate remotely. The same question remains for the hundreds of Hezbollah handheld radios that exploded in a second wave of attacks on Wednesday.

One theory is that the pagers were intercepted and loaded with explosives after they left the factories. Another theory is that Israel orchestrated the entire deadly supply chain.

Bulgarian authorities said on Thursday that the Interior Ministry and the State Security Service had launched an investigation into a company's possible links. They did not name the company they were investigating.

According to local media reports, Sofia-based Norta Global Ltd facilitated the sale of the pagers to Hezbollah. Citing security sources, national broadcaster bTV reported that 1.6 million euros were transferred to Hungary via Bulgaria in connection with the transaction.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the claim.

Emails sent to a Norta email address registered in the Bulgarian Commercial Register were returned as undeliverable. The company's founder declined to comment.

Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format consistent with devices made by Taiwanese company Gold Apollo. Gold Apollo said on Wednesday that the pagers were manufactured by BAC Consulting, a company based in the Hungarian capital Budapest.

BAC Consulting owner and CEO Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono did not respond to multiple requests for comment via phone and text message.

On Wednesday, she told NBC News that her company works with Gold Apollo, but that she had nothing to do with making the pagers. “I'm just the middleman. I think you've misunderstood that,” she told NBC.

Hungarian news site Telex reported, citing sources, that the sale was brokered by Norta Global Ltd.

Norta's Bulgarian headquarters are registered in a residential building in the capital Sofia, which, according to a local commercial register, is also home to nearly 200 other companies. There was no trace of Norta.

Content on Norta Global's website was deleted on Thursday. The site was previously available in English, Bulgarian and Norwegian and offered services such as consulting, technology integration, recruitment and outsourcing.

“Are you looking for an agile company to help you succeed or the right technology solution for you? You've come to the right place,” the website said, according to copies of the site reviewed by Reuters before the change.

Norta's founder Rinson Jose lives in Norway. He declined to comment on the pagers over the phone and hung up when asked about the Bulgarian business.

His neighbors in a quiet suburb of Oslo said they did not know much about him. Amund Djuve, the CEO of DN Media, where Jose currently works, told Reuters he was aware of the reports and had alerted police and security services. He said Jose was traveling to the United States.

“We take these matters very seriously,” said Djuve.

Oslo police said they had launched “preliminary investigations into the information that came to light.”

The Norwegian domestic intelligence service PST said it was aware of the situation but declined to comment further.

There was no evidence of a connection between DN Media and Norta.

Unanswered questions

Barsony-Arcidiacono, of BAC Consulting, the Budapest-based company also linked to the sale of the pagers, vacated her Budapest apartment on Wednesday, a neighbor told Reuters. Her door was ajar on Wednesday but closed on Thursday morning, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. No one answered the doorbell.

A Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah believes it ordered the pagers from Gold Apollo and that they were manufactured in Asia, not Europe.

The source said Hezbollah believes it is much easier for Israel's Mossad intelligence service to operate in Hungary.

“It is possible that the Mossad has set up a European company,” the source said.

(Additional reporting by Georgi Slavov in Sofia and Maya Gebeily and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Frances Kerry)