 Ives Marziale, representative of Ivi Finance & Management Incorporated, a firm directed by German Gunter Leinthauser, arrived in Chile in October 1991 in hopes of buying second-hand weapons from the Chilean Army to sell to the Croatian Army.At that time, Croatia was preparing for the defense of Bosnia ahead of a Serbian offensive to capture Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.However, the UN had imposed an arms embargo on the region to try to quell the fighting, and Croatia was thus hampered in its efforts to secure weapons and ordnance.