The curious case of Italian-Hungarian woman linked to Lebanon pagers

A woman being sought in Hungary for her links to a company with a license to design the pagers of a Taiwanese firm which exploded in Lebanon has done a disappearing act.

Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, 49, has gone out of public slight after initially denying that she was in any way involved in the production of the pagers that went off on September 17, killing 12 people and injuring some 2,000 in Lebanon.

Cristiana is the Italian-Hungarian CEO and owner of Hungary-based BAC Consulting, which is at the heart of a global investigation regarding the pagers bought by the Hezbollah group for its fighters. A man of Indian origin, Rinson Jose, is also in the eye of the storm in this matter.

How Cristiana and Indian-origin man are linked

The pagers that exploded in Lebanon are of the Taiwanese Gold Apollo brand. However, the company has said it did not make those pagers. Instead, it had a three-year licensing agreement with Cristiana’s BAC Consulting, which may have made the pagers, the company has suggested.

However, Hungarian media outlet Telex has reported that BAC Consulting was only “an intermediary in the transaction” — something Cristiana has been quoted as saying as well. According to the Telex report, BAC Consulting dealt with the Bulgarian company Norta Global Ltd, which was behind the pager deal.

According to a CBS News report, Norta Global was registered in April 2022, and the sole owner was Rinson Jose, a Norwegian citizen who is originally from Kerala.

Not involved, says Cristiana

After her company was revealed to have got the license to design the pagers from Gold Apollo, Cristiana told NBC News that she didn’t make them.

“I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,” she said. It was the first and last remark she made before disappearing from public view.

Attempts by many other journalists to interview her have failed. She has not responded to messages left for her at her Budapest apartment.

Cristiana goes missing

Neighbours have not seen her. Her flat in a Budapest building has been shuttered.

Discussions with acquaintances and former work colleagues paint a picture of a woman with an impressive intellect but with a string of short-term jobs.

One report quoted an unnamed former friend as saying about her: “Good-willed, not a business type, more like someone who often tries something new, who quickly believes things and then gets enthusiastic about that.”

‘Not a good employee’

A former US humanitarian administrator, however, spoke poorly about Cristiana.

Kilian Kleinschmidt had hired her in 2019 to run a six-month Dutch-funded programme to train Libyans in Tunisia in subjects such as hydroponics, IT and business development.

“Cristiana. That was one of the biggest mistakes of my life, I think,” Kleinschmidt told news agency Reuters. “It was simply awful on a personal level... At some point I said enough is enough. I should probably have done it sooner. I said that's enough and I sent her home a month early.”

PhD from London

Cristiana practised her drawing as part of a Budapest art club. But she has not attended classes for a couple of years, said the organiser of the group who said she seemed more like a businesswoman than an artist.

According to media reports, in the early 2000s, she earned her PhD in physics at the University College London, where her dissertation on positrons — a subatomic particle with the mass of an electron and a positive charge — remains available on the UCL website.

But the woman never pursued a scientific career.

Cristiana’s “job” she never had

In a CV on the BAC Consulting website, Cristiana described herself as a “Board Member at the Earth Child Institute”, an educational and environmental charity in New York. But its founder, Donna Goodman, told Reuters that Cristiana had never held any role there.

She had been an intern earlier at the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2008-09.

BAC Consulting’s website provided little idea of the company’s actual business in Hungary. Its registered address is a service office in a Budapest suburb.

Where is the woman?

In her CV, Cristiana described herself thus: “With excellent analytical, language, and interpersonal skills, I enjoy working and leading in a multicultural environment where diversity, integrity, and humour are valued.”

Right now, however, no one seems to know where Cristiana is and what role, if any, she played in the pagers blasts that have pushed the already volatile Middle East closer to a full-fledged war.