Taiwan and Bulgaria Friday both denied making the deadly pagers that exploded in Lebanon this week. as the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said his company licensed its trademark to a Hungarian-based company called BAC Consulting, which Hungary said was solely and intermediary and did not have manufacturing production facilities in Hungary. Photo by Ritchie B. Tongo/EPA-EFE

“The components for Hezbollah’s pagers were not produced by us,” he said.

Taiwan foreign minister Lin-Chia-lung said he wanted to “unearth the truth, because Taiwan has never exported this particular pager model.”

Bulgaria’s National Security State Agency said in a statement that investigations by multiple government agencies determined the devices that exploded in Lebanon and Syria were not “imported, exported or manufactured in Bulgaria.”

The statement added that a company known as “Nortal Global” also did not carry out transactions under Bulgarian jurisdiction with respect to the devices.

Gold Apollo CEO Hsu Ching-Kuang said his company licensed its trademark to a Hungarian-based company called BAC Consulting to sell pagers in some regions, although Hungarian authorities said BAC Consulting was solely an intermediary and did not have manufacturing production facilities in Hungary.

Israel is widely believed to be behind the attacks, with Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant declaring Wednesday the blasts signaled Israel was at “the start of a new phase in the war” but Israel has not directly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The New York Times reported, citing three unnamed intelligence officers briefed on the situation, that BAC Consulting and two other shell companies were created to hide that Israeli intelligence officers were making the pagers.

On Thursday Japan’s Icom, inc. also said it had not made the IC-V82 model walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah that also exploded in Lebanon Wednesday.

“It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company,” Icom said.