The incident mentioned (but carefully not elaborated upon, except by referencing that huge number of 23,000) is Project Driveshaft:

[CNN, 2-May-2000]

Federal authorities have seized hundreds of World War II vintage rifle parts and other weapons smuggled from Canada to Reno, Nevada, law enforcement sources tell CNN. Thousands more weapons have been seized by government agents in Canada.

Federal law prohibits the importation of military surplus items, producing a ready market for the popular old rifles among U.S. collectors.

World War II vintage rifles? A ready market for collectors? I got the impression that these were thousands of M-16s, AK-47s, or TEC-9s to be used by Canadian drug dealers to terrorize law-abiding citizens in our major cities.

U.S. officials said the U.S. demand for M1 Garand rifles is partly the result of a limited domestic supply. The first M1s were made by the Winchester rifle company for the U.S. military during World War II. Then two Italian gunmakers began manufacturing them for European troops.

Still, 23,000 rifles is pretty impressive. Well, what the Coalition actually said was 23,000 rifles and components:

More than 20,000 M1 Garand receivers, 39 banned high-capacity M1 magazines and about 1,000 fully assembled M1 rifles were seized in Toronto and Montreal.

So in fact only 1,000 M1s were involved. The receiver is the working bit of the rifle:

The M1 Receiver is the heart of the rifle. It is the main item that other parts are connected to or bolted on.

Special Notes: The receiver is considered a firearm by law even if it has not got anything attached to it. The receiver is where the serial number is stamped.

So I guess that technically counts as a rifle -- but unless you have the barrel and stock and whatnot to go along with it, it's just a chunk of metal. How much whatnot? Look at this picture. The receiver is part #11. The whatnot consists of the other 56 parts!

For a collector with a non-functioning piece, a working receiver would have been quite desirable. For your average criminal, I'd wager not so much.

So what was the scheme here? These rifles were exported by the United States to some third country. They were legally imported into Canada. US law prohibits their importation back into the United States, and that's where the crime was committed.

The registry succeeded not in keeping 23,000 rifles out of the hands of criminals preying on unarmed citizens on Canadian streets, but out of the hands of American collectors subject to a law designed to protect the domestic firearms manufacturing industry in the United States.

I guess the folks at Winchester were well served by the billion dollars in Canadian taxpayer dollars spent.

Still, the registry did catch the crooks, right?

Ottawa, May 2, 2000 - The Honourable Anne McLellan, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada today congratulated officials at the Miramichi firearm registration centre for their pivotal role in dismantling what is believed to be the largest and most sophisticated firearm smuggling ring in North America. The preliminary results of this year-long investigation - PROJECT DRIVESHAFT - were made public by police today.

On Sunday May 22, 1999, staff at the Miramichi facility became suspicious when a Canadian firearm business and an American citizen who had a valid Canadian firearm acquisition licence called repeatedly to register, in lots of 50, a large quantity of firearms.

The parties involved were applying to register a total of over 1,000 basic frames of a GARAND M1, 30 caliber rifle. The frame is the key component of a firearm which meets the legal definition of a firearm, hence the requirement to register it.

Under Canada’s Firearms Act, the firearms had to be registered in order to have them shipped from a Montreal-based importer to a Toronto area firearm dealer. Under U.S. law it is illegal to ship these firearms back to the U.S. It is alleged that the gun parts were shipped back to the American citizen in the United States disguised as auto parts.

The staff at the Miramichi facility should have been suspicious of the fact that May 22, 1999 was a Saturday, not a Sunday.

But that might be a typo. What really bugs me is that before the registration people we alerted, the shipment was already in the country. That means Canada Customs already knew there were 23,000 rifles and components crossing the border. They approved the shipment and collected the taxes. Why didn't they raise the red flag about 23,000 rifles and components destined for the small Canadian market?

Maybe they did. Or maybe they weren't allowed to -- there are laws limiting how much information can be shared between agencies, especially tax-related information.

And then there is the question of what these importers did that was wrong. I mean, yes they planned to smuggle the rifles to the United States. But they were following Canadian laws by registering the rifles. And for that, they were ratted out.

What I'm getting at is this -- who makes the judgement about what is suspicious? What if he had registered twenty rifles? Or ten? Or one? At what point does the RCMP come knocking on your door because you followed the law?

If these criminals had decided to not register the rifles, they would not have been caught.

So this is an example of criminals getting caught by not breaking the law. A lesson to all criminals about the importance of not registering your guns.

Which then comes back to Customs Canada and their apparent silence on the matter. Were they really that oblivious about the intentions behind the shipment?

What if they weren't that blind? What if they called the RCMP in? The Liberal government has already been caught cooking the books to help justify the registry. Is it such a stretch to believe that they could have shifted the credit from Canada Customs to the registry in order to give the registry a much needed boost in credibility? It would explain the strange quirk of the criminals registering the rifles -- they didn't. They were already on the law-enforcement radar thanks to Canada Customs. That they registered the rifles is part of the fiction. And if Canada Customs broke a regulation by reporting on an otherwise perfectly legal shipment, this cover story protects them and the court case. All the registry people have to do is smile for the cameras and keep their mouths shut.

It's a bit of a stretch, but within the realm of possibility.

Still, even if it happened as reported, the true story of this huge success for the registry program is far less impressive than suggested by the Coalition for Gun Control. Hardly a great example to justify a billion dollars or more in expenditure.