This could be yet another example of a dealer with a revoked license transferring firearms from his store into his own name, and then reselling them outside the law.

Stories like these remind us why ATF needs to have much stronger enforcement authority.

From the Windsor Star (Ontario, Canada):

A former Chicago-area gun dealer looking to divest himself of his firearms stock crossed the Ambassador Bridge in a minivan in 2006 carrying 220 guns that he loaded in a Windsor storage locker before they found their way to the hands of criminals elsewhere in the province.

Ugur "Mike" Yildiz was arrested by agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) near his home in Park Ridge, Ill., on Thursday and is charged with violating the Arms Export Control Act.

On Friday the OPP, Toronto police and other agencies held a press conference in Toronto to announce 38 arrests and 443 charges in Project Blackhawk, a two-year operation that involved the tracing of guns found and seized in Canada back to Yildiz.

Two of the charges are against Windsor resident Daniel Wasiluk, 31.

"This case certainly demonstrates that Windsor is definitely a conduit for illegal guns coming in from the United States," said Windsor police Insp. Dave Rossell.

In the ensuing two years, 25 guns that Yildiz is alleged to have imported illegally into Canada were seized by Canadian police agencies, mostly in the Greater Toronto Area. Two guns were used in attempted murder cases.

According to a criminal complaint released by the U.S. Attorney's office for Northern Illinois in Chicago, Yildiz owned and operated Chicagoland Bells, a gun shop in suburban Chicago, beginning in 2002.

Officers with the ATF conducted an inspection of the store in 2003 and found 500 violations of the Gun Control Act, and his licence to operate was revoked, but Yildiz, a Turkish national, still had more than 200 guns.

Yildiz transferred ownership of the guns from the defunct shop to his own name and at some point made contact with "Individual A", a Canadian resident who had offered to assist him in exporting guns to Turkey.

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