At the beginning of the Croatian war of independence he raised money from the Croatian émigré community in Canada and, with the agreement of the Croatian Ministry of the Interior, used it to purchase arms in South Africa. As Croatia was then under an arms embargo, the only in which arms could be shipped to Croatia was through illegal smuggling. He hired a Uganda Airlines Boeing 707 to ship these arms, with the plan that they would file a flight-plan to fly to Trieste, Italy and then attempt to land and unload the plane's cargo of small-arms and anti-armour weapons in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, which at this point had already effectively achieved "de facto" (but not "de jure") independence from Yugoslavia after the Ten Day war. From Slovenia the arms were to be shipped to the Croatian police and militia. The shipment was valued at $1 million, weighed 18 tonnes, and included Singaporean SAR 80 assault rifles and ammunition. Kikaš was the only passenger on the flight, which had a crew of six.