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> That company should be crushed and closed for good by the Hungarian law system IMO. Either you are a military grade company or you aren't. Were the pagers mi

by oytis 2y ago

> That company should be crushed and closed for good by the Hungarian law system IMO. Either you are a military grade company or you aren't. Were the pagers military grade? Hungarian company providing military equipment to Hezbollah would be a scandal on its own.

steventhedev 2y ago
Doesn't matter. Hezbollah are subject to sanctions by the EU as a designated terrorist organization. Presumably, that applies to all companies operating within the EU. Sanctions violations are very much a "do not pass go" style crime, and this looks like it was an entire batch that was delivered directly to Hezbollah.
- hackeraccount 2y ago
  This is the right answer.
pvaldes 2y ago
I assume that you, as a company, need a special permit to manufacture lethal weapons or military products on EU. Either you have it, or you don't. And if you don't have and still do it, I understand that you are breaking a dozen of EU laws. The EU now needs to do something about it, and do it fast. Or to pretend that nothing happened, surrender to Israel, create a dangerous legal precedent "for the cause" and send a clear message that EU manufacture laws are a joke: "All those security filters painfully raised around EU products worth zero and can be easily jumped over". This is a really bad message for all the EU makers. A franchise of your brand also signed a contract to make your product. I assume that changing the functionality or specifications of your registered product is strictly forbidden in that contract. I bet that this move violated some laws on Taiwan also. If I was the CEO of Gold Apollo I would be fuming and furious at this moment. Israel not only pushed them into the middle of a war that is not their war, without their consent or knowledge; also destroyed the brand image and painted a target in the backs of each employee and reseller of Gold Apollo. At this moment, nothing suggests that the Taiwan based company were part of this. They should apologize, clear things, and detach themselves from this PR mess as soon as possible. I understand that from the Mossad point of view this can be a big success, but from the point of view of the companies that try to sell their legit products, this is an direct attack.
- prepend 2y ago
  > Israel not only pushed them into the middle of a war that is not their war, without their consent or knowledge; Weren’t they already selling pagers to Hezbollah? It seems like they were already in the war as a supplier of goods to a terrorist organization. I wonder if this is why Israel made this move because the manufacturer was already breaking international sanction by supplying Hezbollah so they have little recourse. If I was the CEO of Gold Apollo, I’d be investigating why my franchisee was selling stuff to Hezbollah in the first place. But it’s beepers and only 5,000. How expensive is this at the end of the day? It’s probably the last time a company lends then brand name for a small amount.
  - mihaic 2y ago
    > Weren’t they already selling pagers to Hezbollah? I don't have info about those specific models, but this is pagers and not rockets. If someone makes an order for 5000 units I can't image you'd have an expectation to do a background check with references. It's basically like ordering 5000 units of Raspberry Pi, would you consider that a military export?
    - PepperdineG 2y ago
      Raspberry Pis ending up in Russian weapons used in Ukraine is currently an issue actually, which it's illegal to export them to Russia.
    - prepend 2y ago
      For the US, at least, I am forced to confirm that those 5000 raspberry pis aren’t going to a terrorist organization. Isn’t the EU the same way? So it’s not that it’s a military export, but that it’s a sanctioned organization (Iran and Hezbollah).
      - mihaic 2y ago
        How are you realistically able to do this though? It's not like they can't order batches to some neutral-country intermediary and then ship them from there.
RHSeeger 2y ago
> Were the pagers military grade I don't mean to be "that guy", but "military grade" means nothing nowadays. It can mean anything from "made to exactly standards" to "made by the lowest bidder, and likely to fail the minute it's used".
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  "military grade means 'from the lowest bidder', but can tolerate being a dropped a few times"
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- pvaldes 2y ago
  A type of people that uses pagers all day is Physicians. Hospital staff.
- verulito 2y ago
  Been a while since I did fmeca work but it used to mean different tolerances for the parts.
stef25 2y ago
Just normal pagers with 20g of high explosive inserted in to them. They found a way of remotely getting the battery to overheat with would make the thing go boom.

by oytis 2y ago

steventhedev 2y ago

Doesn't matter. Hezbollah are subject to sanctions by the EU as a designated terrorist organization. Presumably, that applies to all companies operating within the EU. Sanctions violations are very much a "do not pass go" style crime, and this looks like it was an entire batch that was delivered directly to Hezbollah.

hackeraccount 2y ago
This is the right answer.

pvaldes 2y ago

I assume that you, as a company, need a special permit to manufacture lethal weapons or military products on EU. Either you have it, or you don't. And if you don't have and still do it, I understand that you are breaking a dozen of EU laws. The EU now needs to do something about it, and do it fast. Or to pretend that nothing happened, surrender to Israel, create a dangerous legal precedent "for the cause" and send a clear message that EU manufacture laws are a joke: "All those security filters painfully raised around EU products worth zero and can be easily jumped over". This is a really bad message for all the EU makers. A franchise of your brand also signed a contract to make your product. I assume that changing the functionality or specifications of your registered product is strictly forbidden in that contract. I bet that this move violated some laws on Taiwan also. If I was the CEO of Gold Apollo I would be fuming and furious at this moment. Israel not only pushed them into the middle of a war that is not their war, without their consent or knowledge; also destroyed the brand image and painted a target in the backs of each employee and reseller of Gold Apollo. At this moment, nothing suggests that the Taiwan based company were part of this. They should apologize, clear things, and detach themselves from this PR mess as soon as possible. I understand that from the Mossad point of view this can be a big success, but from the point of view of the companies that try to sell their legit products, this is an direct attack.

prepend 2y ago
> Israel not only pushed them into the middle of a war that is not their war, without their consent or knowledge; Weren’t they already selling pagers to Hezbollah? It seems like they were already in the war as a supplier of goods to a terrorist organization. I wonder if this is why Israel made this move because the manufacturer was already breaking international sanction by supplying Hezbollah so they have little recourse. If I was the CEO of Gold Apollo, I’d be investigating why my franchisee was selling stuff to Hezbollah in the first place. But it’s beepers and only 5,000. How expensive is this at the end of the day? It’s probably the last time a company lends then brand name for a small amount.
- mihaic 2y ago
  > Weren’t they already selling pagers to Hezbollah? I don't have info about those specific models, but this is pagers and not rockets. If someone makes an order for 5000 units I can't image you'd have an expectation to do a background check with references. It's basically like ordering 5000 units of Raspberry Pi, would you consider that a military export?
  - PepperdineG 2y ago
    Raspberry Pis ending up in Russian weapons used in Ukraine is currently an issue actually, which it's illegal to export them to Russia.
  - prepend 2y ago
    For the US, at least, I am forced to confirm that those 5000 raspberry pis aren’t going to a terrorist organization. Isn’t the EU the same way? So it’s not that it’s a military export, but that it’s a sanctioned organization (Iran and Hezbollah).
    - mihaic 2y ago
      How are you realistically able to do this though? It's not like they can't order batches to some neutral-country intermediary and then ship them from there.

RHSeeger 2y ago

> Were the pagers military grade I don't mean to be "that guy", but "military grade" means nothing nowadays. It can mean anything from "made to exactly standards" to "made by the lowest bidder, and likely to fail the minute it's used".

red-iron-pine 2y ago
"military grade means 'from the lowest bidder', but can tolerate being a dropped a few times"
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pvaldes 2y ago
A type of people that uses pagers all day is Physicians. Hospital staff.
verulito 2y ago
Been a while since I did fmeca work but it used to mean different tolerances for the parts.

stef25 2y ago

Just normal pagers with 20g of high explosive inserted in to them. They found a way of remotely getting the battery to overheat with would make the thing go boom.