Who Is Rinson Jose?

Sep 27, 2024

Apparently this Kerala (India) born man is a key person in the investigation into the Israeli pager terror attack. His last country of residence and employment was Norway, but he’s now in hiding in the US. Here’s what’s known.

First from a Judge Nap video with Max Blumenthal:

Max: A Norwegian citizen named Rinson Jose has been identified. He's on the run now and he's been identified as one of the key figures arranging a transfer of those pagers from a Hungarian shell company under the auspices of this Apollo Gold Taiwanese company that claimed they had no knowledge of the sale. He's the man who's been alleged to have been the middleman and he disappeared into the United States a week before the pager attacks. This is a really interesting detail here because the United States claims it had no knowledge of these attacks and it had no operational involvement in it at all, and Lloyd Austin and the Pentagon were only told just hours before that there would be a general operation inside Lebanon. So I think this figure needs to be discovered. He needs to be found and interrogated and we need to know how he got away inside the US.
Judge: Well, Scott Ritter on this program earlier today recounted all the steps through which the Israelis had to go in order to get the explosive materials into the pagers. It took a couple of years, licenses and employees and buildings and front companies and phony checking accounts. It couldn't possibly have been done without CIA knowing about it. If they didn't know about it they were not doing their job.

The Daily Mail adds some circumstantial detail:

Norwegian tech guru who accidentally helped Israel get their hands on pagers used to bomb Lebanon went missing on day of the explosions... and hasn't been heard from since
A Norwegian tech guru who inadvertently helped Israel source the pagers used to bomb Hezbollah militants disappeared on the day of the blasts and hasn’t been heard from since, MailOnline can reveal.
Indian-born entrepreneur Rinson Jose, 39, was listed as the owner of a Bulgarian shell company that reportedly paid British-educated intermediary Cristiana Arcidiacono-Barsony £1.3million as part of a complex Mossad-orchestrated deal to obtain the pagers.

Arcidiacono-Barsony was the CEO of the Hungarian intermediary firm. Links to her here.

Jose, who moved to Oslo in 2015 after a two-year stint working for a London immigration advisory firm, is understood to have left on a pre-planned business trip on Tuesday.
But bosses at his primary employer, Norwegian media conglomerate NHST, have been unable to reach him since - and reportedly contacted Norway’s domestic intelligence service late on Wednesday night after becoming aware of his links to the attacks in Lebanon late.
There is no suggestion that Norwegian citizen Mr Jose was in any way aware of the clandestine plot to lace the pagers with high explosives, or aware that the ultimate buyer, Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono who has denied involvement in the plot, was working with Israel’s security services.
The shell company, Norta Global LTD, was registered to a apartment building in Budapest that is home to nearly 200 other firms.

For a supposed “tech guru” Jose’s employment history doesn’t seem to match up to the billing. Instead he seems to have traveled extensively around the world, setting up shell companies as he went. Huh.

Norwegian police seek missing man over pagers in Hezbollah blasts
International warrant issued for Rinson Jose, who disappeared during work trip to US last week
Police in Norway have put out an international search warrant for a Norwegian Indian man in connection with the sale of pagers to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that exploded last week, killing dozens of people.
Rinson Jose, 39, the founder of a Bulgarian company that is alleged to be part of the pager supply chain, went missing during a work trip to the US last week.
On Thursday, Oslo police said: “Yesterday, the Oslo police district received a missing person report in connection with the pager case. A missing persons case has been opened and we have sent out an international warrant for the person.”
Jose declined to comment on the pagers when he was contacted by Reuters on 18 September and hung up after being asked about the Bulgarian business. He then failed to respond to multiple calls and messages.
His employer, DN Media Group, said Jose, who works in the Norwegian media company’s sales department, departed for a conference in Boston on 17 September and since the following day the company had been unable to contact him.
According to Bulgaria’s corporate registry, Jose founded Norta Global Ltd, based in the capital, Sofia, in 2022.
Bulgarian authorities have investigated the company’s role in supplying the pagers but did not find evidence that they were made in or exported from Bulgaria.

The Deccan Herald focuses mainly on the Bulgarian connection:

Explained | Who is Rinson Jose? How did his name come up in Lebanon pager blast case?
Bulgaria's National Security Agency (SANS) gave a clean chit to the company as it stated that no communication device linked to the blast was imported, exported or manufactured in Bulgaria.
Reuters quoted local media reports as saying that Sofia-based Norta Global Ltd had facilitated the sale of the pagers to Hezbollah. Citing security sources, national broadcaster bTV reported that 1.6 million euros related to the transaction passed through Bulgaria, and was sent to Hungary.
Although on paper it was BAC Consulting that signed the contract with Gold Apollo, Norta Global Ltd. was actually the one behind the deal, Telex reported.
The name of BAC Consulting was put forward by the founder and president of Taiwan's Gold Apollo. Logos of Gold Apollo were found on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon.
However, Bulgaria's National Security Agency (SANS) gave a clean chit to Norta Global as it stated that no communication device linked to the blast was imported, exported or manufactured in Bulgaria.
"Following verifications, it has been indisputably established that no communication equipment corresponding to those that exploded on September 17 was imported, exported or manufactured in Bulgaria," Barron's reported.
Norta's Bulgarian headquarters are registered at an apartment building in the capital Sofia that is also home to nearly 200 other companies, according to a local company registry. There was no sign of Norta.
Content on Norta Global’s website, globalnorta.com, was deleted on Thursday. The website previously had English, Bulgarian and Norwegian language versions, and advertised services including consulting, technology integration, recruitment, and outsourcing.

This article gives a bit of background on Jose from his home state in India, Kerala: