British-educated businesswoman at centre of exploding pager plot is in hiding under the guard of Hungarian secret services, her mother says

The businesswoman responsible for thousands of deadly beepers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria this week is in hiding and being guarded by the Hungarian secret service, her mother claims.

Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, 49, who was educated in Britain, has not appeared in public since Tuesday’s deadly simultaneous attack, believed to have been the work of the Mossad and targeted Hezbollah.

Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono’s mother, Beatrix, who lives in Catania, Sicily, told MailOnline her daughter had received unknown ‘threats’ and was now ‘in a safe place, protected by agents of the Hungarian government’.

The claim has been denied by Hungarian officials in Budapest, where Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono is listed as CEO of BAC Consulting, which bears her initials.

A Taiwanese company that owns the trademark for the pagers claimed that BAC was responsible for manufacturing the devices. It denied the accusation before going underground.

Her mother, Beatrix, 70, said she had been in contact with her daughter but that both women had been advised by the Hungarian secret service “not to talk to the media. No comment, no comment,” she repeated in response to other questions.

She had previously maintained that her daughter was not consciously involved in the plot.

“She was not involved in any way, she was just a broker. The items did not go through Budapest. … They were not produced in Hungary,” she told the Associated Press.

Two days of attacks this week, first targeting pagers and then walkie-talkies, have killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 3,000, including civilians. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono’s company came under fire after Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese firm, said it had given BAC Consulting permission to use its name on the pagers used in the first attack, but that the Hungarian company was responsible for their production and design.

A Hungarian government spokesman said Wednesday that the pagers delivered to Hezbollah had never been to Hungary and that BAC Consultants acted only as an intermediary.

Mrs Bársony-Arcidiacono senior lives in the town of Santa Venerina at the foot of Etna, where the streets and pavements are covered in black volcanic ash from a major eruption last month.

Her semi-detached house, with a wide balcony overlooking the sparkling waters of the Gulf of Catania on one side and Europe’s largest active volcano on the other, was where Christiana grew up. She attended the Archimedes School in Acireale and later studied physics at the University of Catania.

Her Italian father, Salvatore, a journalist, died many years ago, but by then Cristiana had already left Italy.

According to official Italian data, she left for the United Kingdom around 2006 to study there.

On social media, Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono now describes herself as a strategic advisor and business developer with a doctorate who has worked for major international organisations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the humanitarian agency CARE, as well as for venture capital firms.

She says she earned her Ph.D. from University College London, where she enrolled in the early to mid-2000s, according to her LinkedIn page. There, she worked with Ákos Kövér, a Hungarian physicist and now-retired professor, who confirmed her enrollment at the prestigious university.

Kövér told AP: ‘We also published a number of joint articles at the time. I am not aware of her other activities, as far as I know she has not done any scientific work since then.’

Neighbors said they were shocked to read allegations about Sicilian-born Cristiana’s involvement in the supply chain that led to multiple deadly attacks in Beirut.

“She couldn’t have known,” repeated a man who knows her family and asked not to be named. “She’s a very smart lady from a respectable family and she would never have done something like that. If it’s true, then they must have tricked her.”

Another family friend told La Sicilia newspaper: ‘I didn’t believe Cristiana was the owner of a company that could give such great publicity.’

Widow Mrs Bársony-Arcidiacono said her daughter was born in Sicily and studied there at the University of Catania before completing a PhD in London. She worked in Paris and Vienna before moving to Budapest in October 2016 to care for her elderly grandmother.

In May 2022, Cristiana founded the company at the heart of the pager mystery.

BAC Consulting shares the ground floor of a modest building in Budapest with numerous other companies, but has no physical offices and uses the space in the Hungarian capital – like the other companies based there – only as an official address, according to a woman who emerged from the building earlier this week and asked not to be named.

The company’s website said it specialized in “environment, development and international affairs.” Its business register listed 118 official functions, including sugar and oil production, jewelry retailing and natural gas extraction.

According to the company’s filing, it brought in $725,000 in revenue in 2022 and $593,000 in 2023. Last year, the company spent nearly $324,000, or about 55% of its revenue, on “equipment.”

The company’s website has been offline since Wednesday.