Here's the "how" --- shell companies<p>He (Nasrallah) had been pushing for years for Hezbollah to invest instead in pagers, which for all their limited capabilities could receive data without giving away a user’s location or other compromising information, according to American intelligence assessments.<p>Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.<p>By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.<p>B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.<p>The pagers began shipping to Lebanon in the summer of 2022 in small numbers, but production was quickly ramped up after Mr. Nasrallah denounced cellphones.