Gold Apollo Says It Didn’t Make Pagers Used in Lebanon Attack

Asia Pacific|Taiwan Company Tries to Distance Itself From Pagers Used in Lebanon Attack

Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company that American and other officials named as the supplier of pagers used in attacks in Lebanon that killed at least 11 people, sought on Wednesday to distance itself from the devices.

American and other officials briefed on the attack had said that Israel had inserted explosive material into a shipment of pagers from Gold Apollo, in an apparently coordinated operation aimed at Hezbollah.

Gold Apollo denied that it had made the pagers, pointing instead at another manufacturer that it said had made that model of pager, using Gold Apollo’s brand, as part of a licensing deal.

Explosive material that had been concealed inside a batch of the pagers detonated after they received a signal. Around 2,700 people were also injured by the attack.

“That product isn’t ours. They just stick on our company brand,” Mr. Hsu told journalists, adding that in return his company received a share of the profits. He said B.A.C. was based in Europe and had an office in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital.

“We only provide brand trademark authorization and have no involvement in the design or manufacturing of this product,” Gold Apollo said in a written statement. Even so, the Gold Apollo website displayed a picture of the pager model until the web page was taken down on Wednesday.

Efforts to contact B.A.C. and check Mr. Hsu’s account were not immediately successful. Nobody answered the door of an office address for a company by that name in Taipei.

Mr. Hsu’s explanation, if confirmed, suggests that tracing how and when the pagers — known as the AR924 model — were packed with explosive material could be complicated. Taiwan’s sprawling consumer electronics industry is a complex supply chain of brands, manufacturers and agents.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, which oversees trade, said that its records showed “no direct exports to Lebanon” of such pagers from Gold Apollo. The company’s pagers were mainly exported to Europe and North America, the ministry said. The company reviewed news reports and photographs and judged that the pagers had been modified only after being exported from Taiwan, the ministry said.

Mr. Hsu said that he had a longstanding relationship with B.A.C. before they struck the brand licensing deal. Looking back, he said, there was one “odd” incident with B.A.C., when a local Taiwanese bank had delayed a bank transfer from the company, which Mr. Hsu said might have come from the Middle East. He did not say which country.