Another spectacular case came before a Paris court in 1998 when a Portuguese arms dealer – with a company registered in Britain – was seeking payment of $3 million for his role in a sanctions-busting transaction to South Africa during the apartheid era. He claimed to have brokered the sale of military helicopters to the Pretoria regime from French arms producer Aerospatiale, involving the Portuguese aerospace producer Ogma and Armscor, the state arms company in South Africa. The Portuguese dealer said he had arranged the smuggling of crates of helicopter engines and rotors from France, via Portugal, to embargoed South Africa in 1989, but had never received his 10% commission