Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo, whose name was on pagers that exploded in a coordinated attack on Hezbollah members in Lebanon, says the devices were made under license by a company called BAC Consulting based in Budapest, Hungary.
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00:00The pages that exploded in Lebanon reportedly have a link to Taiwan. A Lebanese security
00:06source has told Reuters that they were made by Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo. But
00:12the company is disputing that. Louise Watt is live for us outside the offices of the
00:17Taiwanese company in question. Louise, what has the company been saying?
00:24Well Gold Apollo says that the pager at the centre of all of this, the model AR924, which
00:31has its name stamped on it, it says it was not its product but that it was made by a
00:38company in Europe which has a licence to use the Taiwanese brand. Now in the last few minutes
00:44Gold Apollo has said a little more. It's revealed that that company is based in Budapest, Hungary.
00:51It says it's called BAC Consulting. But it hasn't really given many more details other
00:57than that. Now the company's founder earlier did speak to reporters here at the headquarters
01:03in New Taipei City. That's about a half hour ride from downtown Taipei. This is what he
01:09said.
01:10This company has an agent. An agent in Europe. He's been with us for three years. He's been
01:20with us for three years. Now today officials from Taiwan's economy ministry have been inside
01:27Now, today, officials from Taiwan's economy ministry have been inside the company, as
01:47well as police officers that keep going backwards and forwards, and Taipei prosecutors now also
01:54say that they're investigating possible illegal activities related to national security.
02:00Now, Gold Apollo's name was drawn into this when officials and security sources in Lebanon
02:08told various international media that Hezbollah had ordered more than 3,000 pages from the
02:15company, and then they were received in Lebanon and distributed by Hezbollah to its members.
02:23Now, Hezbollah fighters were using pages which receive text messages instead of smartphones
02:31because they wanted to avoid having their locations tracked, but explosives were hidden
02:38inside these pages.
02:39Now, the founder of Gold Apollo says that this is embarrassing for the company to have
02:46its name drawn into it, and it says it's also a victim in this incident.