Fears of Tech Warfare Intensify as Pagers Kill 12, Injure 3,000

A small Taiwanese company that makes pagers was thrust into the global spotlight on Wednesday after devices carrying its brand killed 12 and injured close to 3,000 people in Lebanon and Syria.

The founder and head of Gold Apollo told reporters in Taiwan on Wednesday that the pagers used by members of Hezbollah were made by a firm in Budapest that acquired a licence to produce its devices – and that it was not involved in making the pagers which analysts say were secretly converted into small bombs.

Simultaneous explosions erupted across Beirut on Tuesday afternoon, maiming thousands of Hezbollah members, plus some family members, in an attack that Lebanese security sources say was likely caused by explosives planted inside the devices by Israeli spy agency Mossad.

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Images of destroyed pagers analysed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo.

Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang (Reuters 18 Sept 2024).

“The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,” Gold Apollo founder and president Hsu Ching-kuang told reporters at the company’s office in the northern Taiwanese city of New Taipei on Wednesday.

The company said in a statement that the AR-924 model was produced and sold by BAC Consulting in the capital of Hungary.

Gold Apollo authorised “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,” the statement said.

Concern over new ‘tech warfare’

The pager model had been advertised as being “rugged” and contained a rechargeable lithium battery, according to details advertised on Apollo’s website before it was apparently taken down on Tuesday after the attack, Associated Press reported.

The fact that its battery could last for up to 85 days and receive text messages of up to 100 characters may have made it popular in Lebanon, because the country often suffers power cuts, it said, noting that the devices were seen as more resilient in emergencies because they run on a different wireless network to mobile phones.

Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been exchanging fire since last October, when Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel sparked an enormous counteroffensive estimated to have claimed over 40,000 lives in Gaza.

Hezbollah fighters began using pagers – a seemingly old and outdated technology – in the belief they would be able to evade Israeli tracking of their locations, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters this year.

Analysts said the pager attack in Lebanon could signal a new era of tech warfare in which innocuous gadgets are transformed into deadly devices.

They said Hezbollah’s switch to pagers to avoid using phones that could be tracked backfired, partly because the pagers come from just a small number of vendors.

The pagers used by members of Hezbollah were believed to have contain a small explosive charge in the device that was triggered by a simple message sent to the pagers, according to a former British Army munitions expert who spoke to the BBC (see video).

Victims said the pagers appeared to heat up before they exploded. Many suffered serious injuries to their eyes, faces and hands. Healthcare workers and two children were reportedly among those killed.

The attack could have a big impact on Hezbollah, having destroyed its covert communications system. And analysts said it was also likely to heighten public concern about the safety of mobile phones.

Taiwan: No pager exports to Lebanon

Meanwhile, Reuters said calls and emails to BAC on Wednesday morning were not answered.

And the Gold Apollo boss in Taiwan revealed that he had previously had problems with remittances from BAC, which AP has said appears to be a shell company.

“The remittance was very strange,” he said, adding that payments had come through the Middle East. He did not elaborate further.

Hsu said he did not know how the pagers could have been rigged to explode.

While Hsu was meeting with reporters, police officials arrived at the company. Officials from Taiwan’s economy ministry also visited Gold Apollo.

The ministry said in a statement that there was no record of direct pager exports from Taiwan to Lebanon.

Hsu also said Gold Apollo was a victim of the incident and planned to sue the licensee. “We may not be a large company but we are a responsible one,” he said. “This is very embarrassing.”