Kerala-born Norwegian businessman tied to Hezbollah pager blasts? All you need to know about Rinson Jose

Rinson Jose, a Norwegian businessman born in Kerala, has been accused of selling pagers linked to the Lebanon blasts through his company, Norta Global, according to Hungarian news site Telex.

Norta Global, based in Sofia, Bulgaria, removed its website on Thursday, which previously showcased its technology consultancy services. Additionally, the office could not be located at its registered address.

Rinson Jose declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Meanwhile, the Bulgarian national security agency has launched an investigation into the allegations and stated on Friday that the firm had no involvement in supplying pagers to Hezbollah.

In Kerala, local police and central government agencies have conducted a background check on Jose's family in his native village of Ondayangadi, as reported by the Times of India. Rinson, the son of tailor Moothedath Jose and Gracy, resides in Norway with his wife, while his brother lives in the UK and his sister works as a nurse in Ireland. His uncle, Thankachan, informed TOI that the family has been unable to reach him for the past three days.

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Who is Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono?

A 49-year-old Italian-Hungarian woman is at the center of controversy regarding a coordinated pager attack in Lebanon that targeted Hezbollah members, resulting in at least 12 deaths and thousands of injuries.

Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, the listed CEO of Budapest-based BAC Consulting, has gained attention due to her firm's connection to the explosive pagers. This follows a statement from the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, which claimed it had authorized BAC Consulting to use its name on the pagers involved in the incident.

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Barsony-Arcidiacono has received unspecified "threats" in the days following the incident and has been advised by Hungarian secret services “not to speak to the media,” according to her mother, who spoke to Associated Press on Friday.

She asserted that her daughter was "not involved in any way" in the deadly scheme to turn the pagers into explosives, stating, "She was just a broker." Her mother added, "The items did not pass through Budapest... They were not produced in Hungary," reiterating a claim made by the Hungarian government earlier in the week.

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After it was revealed that her company licensed the pager design from the original Taiwanese manufacturer, Gold Apollo, Barsony-Arcidiacono told NBC News that she did not manufacture them. "I am just the intermediary. I think you got it wrong," she stated.

Since then, she has not publicly appeared, and neighbours report they haven’t seen her. She did not respond to messages requesting comment, and her flat in a historic Budapest building, which had an open vestibule door earlier in the week, is now shut, Reuters reported.

Education

In the early 2000s, Barsony-Arcidiacono earned her PhD in physics from University College London, where her dissertation on positrons—a subatomic particle with the mass of an electron and a positive charge—is still available on the UCL website. 

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However, she seems to have departed from the scientific field thereafter.

"As far as I know, she has not engaged in scientific work since then," Akos Torok, a retired physicist and one of her professors at UCL who published papers with her, told Reuters via email.

Also Read: Hezbollah vows ‘fair punishment’ to Israel as deadly pager blasts across Lebanon kill 12

A resume Barsony-Arcidiacono submitted to secure her position at Kleinschmidt claimed she had additional post-graduate degrees in politics and development from the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies, which Reuters could not verify. She also detailed a series of roles involving NGO projects across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Also Read: Lebanon Pager Blasts: A text, 3 beeps and blasts – How Israel’s Mossad orchestrated coordinated deadly explosions

In a separate CV on the BAC Consulting website, she identified herself as a "Board Member at the Earth Child Institute," an educational and environmental charity in New York. However, the group's founder, Donna Goodman, informed Reuters that Barsony-Arcidiacono had never held any position there.

(With inputs from agencies)