The woman whose company was linked to the explosive pagers is protected by the Hungarian secret service, her mother says.

The woman whose company has been linked to thousands Pagers that exploded Her mother told The Associated Press on Friday that her daughter is now in Lebanon and Syria this week under the protection of Hungarian intelligence services.

Cristiana Barsoni Arcidiacono has not been seen in public since the deadly simultaneous attack on Iran-backed Hezbollah On Tuesday, Israel was widely blamed. She is listed as the CEO of Budapest-based BAC Consulting, which the Taiwanese brand owner of the pagers said was Responsible for manufacturing devices.

Her mother, Beatrix Barsoni Arcidiacono, told The Associated Press that her daughter had received unspecified threats and was “currently in a safe place under the protection of the Hungarian secret services.”

“The Hungarian secret services advised her not to speak to the media,” she added in a telephone interview from Sicily.

Hungary’s national security authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.

Two days of attacks this week, the first targeting pagers And then Wireless communication devicesThe attack killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 3,000 others, including civilians. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

Christiana Parsoni Arsidacono came under scrutiny after Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company, said it had allowed BIC Consulting to use its name on the pagers used in the first attack, but that the Hungarian company was responsible for manufacturing and designing.

A Hungarian government spokesman said on Wednesday that the pagers delivered to Hezbollah were never in Hungary, and that BAC Consulting had merely acted as an intermediary.

Beatrix Barsoni Arcidacono, who also uses the name Beatrice, confirmed the same view.

“She was not involved in any way, she was just an intermediary. The materials did not go through Budapest… and were not produced in Hungary,” she said.

BAC Consulting shares the ground floor of a modest building in Budapest with several other companies, but it has no physical offices and uses the property in Hungary’s capital — like other companies based there — only as an official address, according to a woman who emerged from the building earlier this week and declined to give her name.

The company’s website says it specializes in “environment, development and international affairs.” The company’s registry lists 118 formal jobs including sugar and oil production, jewelry retailing and natural gas extraction.

The company had revenue of $725,000 in 2022 and $593,000 in 2023, according to the company’s filing. Last year, the company spent about $324,000, or about 55% of its revenue, on “equipment.”

Business records reviewed by CBS News from the Hungarian Justice Ministry show that BAC Consulting was registered as a company in May 2022.

Beatrix Barsoni Arcidiacono said her daughter was born in Sicily and studied at the University of Catania before completing a PhD in London. She worked in Paris and Vienna before moving to Budapest in October 2016 to care for her elderly grandmother.

On social mediaParsoni Arcidiacono describes herself as a strategy consultant and business developer who has worked for major international organizations as well as venture capital firms. Her company’s website says she holds a doctorate in physics.

The 49-year-old earned her degree from University College London, where she enrolled in the early to mid-2000s, according to her LinkedIn page. There, she worked with Akos Kövér, a Hungarian physicist and now-retired professor, who confirmed her enrollment.

“At that time, we also published some joint articles. I am not aware of her other activities,” Coffer said in an email to The Associated Press.

She interned at the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2008 and 2009, the agency said, and once co-authored a paper for a UNESCO conference that discussed groundwater management.

She posted photos on her social media accounts from France, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, mostly selfies or photos of places she said she had visited. Only a few friends responded to her messages, some inviting her to visit or commenting on her appearance.

She speaks English, French, Italian and Hungarian, according to her social media accounts, where she has occasionally made comments criticizing Ukraine or supporting children in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said it carried out an operation. “targeted strike” In Beirut, on Friday, at least eight people were killed, including Hezbollah leader Ibrahim Aqil.

The United States had previously offered “Reward up to $7 million “For information leading to the identification, location, arrest and/or conviction” of Akil, who was said to have been a leader of Hezbollah in the 1980s, when the group claimed responsibility for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

The White House had earlier warned both Israel and Hezbollah against “escalation of any kind” following this week’s simultaneous pager and radio explosions, but overnight, Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon, Hezbollah continued to fire..