Forbes StaffThe massive pager blasts in Lebanon have Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono’s name linked to the case in a new development.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Lebanon and parts of Syria saw massive pager blasts, killing at least 37 people, including Hezbollah militants, and injuring more than 3,000. In the case, a new name has been linked of a mystery Hungarian CEO named Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono. She serves as the CEO of a company licensed to design for pagers linked to a string of explosions that happened in Lebanon.
Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono linked in the Hezbollah pagers blasts.
Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono holds a PhD in particle physics and is fluent in seven languages. She is the CEO of a company licensed to design for pagers called BAC Consulting. After it was revealed that her company had licensed the pager design from the original Taiwanese manufacturer, Gold Apollo, Barsony-Arcidiacono told NBC News, “I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong.” She did not make a public appearance since the blasts in Lebanon. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel for the blasts, which Israel neither confirmed nor denied.
“Not involved in any way.”
Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono’s mother told the Associated Press (AP) that her daughter was “not involved in any way” in the deadly scheme to turn the pagers into explosives, asserting that “she was just a broker.” She said, “The items did not pass through Budapest. … They were not produced in Hungary,” reflecting a claim made by the Hungarian government earlier.
Since the blasts, Cristiana has not been seen in public, and she has not responded to calls and emails from Reuters. When they visited her residence in downtown Budapest, she did not answer. On Wednesday, the Hungarian government stated that BAC Consulting was a “trading-intermediary company” with no manufacturing facility in Hungary, asserting that the pagers had never been in the country. Beatrix Bársony-Arcidiacono told AP from Sicily that her daughter, Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, “is currently in a safe place protected by the Hungarian secret services.”
