Bulgaria says it didn’t make the exploding pagers

The mystery of the exploding pagers that hit Hezbollah members this week grew on Friday, as Bulgarian authorities denied the detonation devices were manufactured, imported or exported on its territory.

In a new statement, the country’s State Agency for National Security (DANS) said that it has carried out inspections across various ministries and established “beyond doubt that no communication devices were imported, exported or manufactured in Bulgaria corresponding to those blown up” in Lebanon and Syria.

Israeli security services are believed to have hit the Lebanon-based terrorist group by simultaneously triggering minute quantities of explosive hidden in thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies starting Tuesday. The explosions left at least 37 dead and hundreds maimed and injured across Lebanon and Syria.

Hungarian news outlet Telex earlier this week pointed to Bulgaria as being involved in the trading of the pagers that contained explosives.

The Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo is believed to have manufactured the devices but it said it had authorized BAC Consulting, a firm registered in Hungary, to use its brand for product sales in certain regions. Hungarian authorities then denied any involvement and reported that BAC Consulting was only an intermediary, with no manufacturing or production facilities in Hungary. Instead, the Hungarian news outlet claimed that Hezbollah bought the pager stocks from a company registered in Bulgaria called Norta Global.

Bulgaria’s DANS agency said Norta Global or its owner “did not carry out transactions in respect of which Bulgaria has jurisdiction.”

The agency added that the Bulgarian company also “did not carry out financial operations falling within the scope of” anti-terrorism laws and did not trade with “individuals and legal entities subject to restrictive measures under the sanctions regimes” of the European Union and United Nations.

The trail of companies suggests an effort to hide the provenance and to obfuscate the supply chain of the devices that eventually ended up in the hands of Hezbollah.

Petar Petrov, a former deputy chairman of DANS, told POLITICO that Bulgaria maintained a neutral position on the conflict in the Middle East and said “all the information spread by some Hungarian media turned out to be not true, as shows the research of our authorities … What happened resembles a classical disinformation campaign to me.”