Lebanon attacks: Kerala-born Norwegian citizen linked to sale of pagers from Bulgarian firm

A Kerala-born Norwegian citizen, Rinson Jose, has been linked to the sale of pagers to Hezbollah in Lebanon that exploded earlier this week, causing several deaths and injuring several hundreds of people, though there is no clear information about his possible involvement.

Hezbollah accused Israel of being responsible for the attacks, but Israel has not made any comment about the attacks or about the allegations against it.

There have been multiple news reports speculating that the Israelis may have created several shell companies in Europe to carry out the sophisticated attack.

Taiwanese firm denies involvement 

The pagers that exploded carried the brand name of Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company.

However, the founder and president of Gold Apollo, Hsu Ching-Kuang, said the pagers were not made by his company. He said Gold Apollo had a three-year licensing agreement with BAC Consulting, a company in Budapest, Hungary, and that the pagers could have been manufactured by them.

Hungarian media outlet Telex then reported that BAC Consulting was only “an intermediary in the transaction”.

Role of Bulgarian firm Norta Global

As investigators and news agencies in different countries tried to unravel the mystery surrounding the exploding pagers in Lebanon and Syria, Telex reported that BAC Consulting dealt with a Bulgarian company called Norta Global Ltd, which was actually behind the pagers deal.

CBS News did some research and came up with the finding that Norta Global Ltd was registered as a firm in Bulgaria in April 2022, and the sole owner was listed as a Norwegian citizen of Indian origin, Rinson Jose.

Norta Global gets clean chit from security agency

While the news media in Kerala picked up on the news and went in search of Rinson’s family in Mananthavady, Wayanad, to get further details about Rinson, the Bulgarian state security agency DANS seemed to give a clean chit to Norta Global, saying on Friday (September 20) that no pagers used in the Lebanon attack were imported to, exported from, or manufactured in Bulgaria.

“Following verifications, it has been indisputably established that no communication equipment corresponding to those that exploded on September 17 was imported, exported, or manufactured in Bulgaria,” said DANS in a report by Barron’s.

Who is Rinson Jose?

Rinson is a 37-year-old ex-seminarian from Wayanad, Kerala, who migrated to Norway more than a decade ago, according to a report by Onmanorama. He has an MBA degree from Pondicherry University and a Masters in International Social Welfare and Health Policy from Oslo Metropolitan University.

His LinkedIn profile indicates that he is employed with the DN Media Group since March 2022. His profile also shows that he runs a company called NortaLink, an IT services, consulting, procurement, and recruiting company.

Rinson is now reportedly in the US.

His father is a tailor in Mananthavady, and he has a twin brother in the UK and a sister in Ireland. His family in Kerala has no information about his business dealings, and has been caught unawares by reports linking him to the pager attacks.

The local people have a good impression about the family. One of his cousins said they were very worried about the news reports, and that they tried to contact him on Friday, but to no avail.