Glamorous ‘scientist’ who ‘supplied spy agency pagers to bomb Lebanon

The mystery of how Mossad obtained the pagers used to bomb Lebanon, killing nearly 40 and wound thousands over two days, has deepened after a British university said it never taught the woman who supplied the spy agency. Over two days, explosives embedded within pagers and walkie talkies detonated across Lebanon in a major gambit likely perpetrated by Israel’s shadowy intelligence agency Mossad, which is believed to have created firms across Europe to make and sell the old-fashioned radio gadgets, with Mossad redesigning them to contain lethal amounts of PETN explosive with a miniature detonator.

Hungarian company BAC Consulting, said to have supplied the pagers, was really part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers spoken to by the New York Times. The firm was run by glamorous ‘scientist’ Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono (pictured) who boasted of speaking seven languages and being educated in politics at the London School of Economics (LSE)and having a PhD in physics from University College London.

However, LSE said it did not award her graduate diplomas in politics during the years in question. And neither UCL nor the School of Oriental and African Studies could confirm her claims of having studied there. American journalists who reached Barsony-Arcidiacono by phone earlier in the week said she denied knowledge of the plot saying: ‘I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate.’

BAC’s website, now taken down, was littered with photos of landscapes, business jargon, meaningless buzzwords and ‘uplifting’ quotes from Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci. Its HQ was an empty flat in Budapest. John Bayliss, a former official at GCHQ, speculated that Israel had discovered that whatever company had taken Hezbollah’s order wanted to outsource the manufacturing to Europe, and seized the opportunity to set up a ‘dummy company’ to supply the order and undercut competitors.

At least two other shell companies, one in Sofia, Bulgaria headed by a Norwegian businessman, were created as well. Their role was to mask the real identities of the people creating the devices in Israeli intelligence. Mossad had been crafting the plan long before Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah ruled that mobile phones were too easy to trace and ordered their replacement with pagers and walkie-talkies. If Israel was going high-tech, Hezbollah would go low. ‘You ask me, where is the agent?’ Nasrallah told his followers. ‘I tell you that the phone in your hands, in your wife’s hands, and in your children’s hands is the agent. Bury it. Put it in an iron box and lock it.’

Following this speech in February, Mossad’s production of bomb gadgets was quickly ramped up, it is believed. Over the summer, shipments of pagers to Lebanon increased, with thousands arriving in the country and being distributed among Hezbollah officers and their allies, say American intelligence officials. Meanwhile Icom, the Japanese manufacturer whose name was on hand-held radios that exploded, said it had discontinued the device a decade ago. Icom said it had not shipped any of the IC-V82 radios since 2014. The explosions have massively escalated already high tensions between Israel, Hezbollah and the terror group’s allies.

Israeli warplanes carried out late on Thursday their most intense strikes on southern Lebanon in nearly a year of war, heightening the conflict between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah amid calls for restraint. In Thursday’s late operation, Israel’s military said its jets over two hours struck hundreds of multiple-rocket-launcher barrels in southern Lebanon that were set to be fired immediately toward Israel. The bombardment included more than 52 strikes across southern Lebanon after 9 p.m.(1800 GMT), Lebanon’s state news agency NNA said. Three Lebanese security sources said these were the heaviest aerial strikes since the conflict began in October. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israel’s military vowed to continue to attack Hezbollah and said its strikes throughout Thursday hit about 100 rocket launchers plus other targets in southern Lebanon. In a TV address on Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the device explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday ‘crossed all red lines’. ‘The enemy went beyond all controls, laws and morals,’ he said, adding the attacks ‘could be considered war crimes or a declaration of war.’ Ian is believed to have sent money to an Israeli pensioner in exchange for assassinating Benjamin Netanyahu It is claimed Tehran sought to employ Israeli businessman Moti Maman, 73, who is said to have spent time in Turkey developing a plot to kill the Israeli Prime Minister.

Iran is believed to have been behind a wider plan to assassinate several senior officials in Israel, following the killing of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh on July 31, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced on Wednesday. Two Turkish men, Andrei Farouk Aslan and Guneid Aslan, were named as the intermediaries connecting Maman with Iran. They are alleged to have met him in the city of Samandag in May to discuss the hit. After an initial request to be paid $1million in advance of any agreement, Maman is believed to have been offered €5,000 (£4,200) to join meetings and undergoing training.

As part of his work, Maman was allegedly told to take videos of Israeli sites for surveillance and intelligence gathering purposes. Iran is also understood to have asked the businessman to try to recruit Russians and Americans capable of killing Iranian figures opposed to the regime. Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet did not suggest how far the suspect had got with his missions – and stressed that foiling one plot did not end the overarching threats facing Israel. Last week the agency uncovered what it said was a plot by militant group Hezbollah to assassinate a former senior defence official, who was subsequently identified as former Israeli Defence Forces chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon.

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