Detectives discovered an investigative foul-up not long ago while making routine checks of pawn shops. hese are some of the shops where thieves often try to sell stolen items.

This day a detective from the sheriff’s department is in a pawn shop when he spots a Remington rifle hat’s been reported stolen during a burglary. The theft occurred in a far western state.

Back at headquarters, the detective examines the rifle before notifying the reporting police department hat he’s recovered the firearm from a local pawn broker.

Wait a minute! There’s something strange about the rifle’s serial number. Taking a closer look, the detective realizes that the number that’s been filed with the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) is not the rifle’s serial number but the rifle’s patent number.

That’s a major foul-up, because the serial number appears only on one specific weapon, whereas the patent number appears on every rifle of that design made and sold by the manufacturer.

The number listed on the nationwide NCIC contains the patent number—not the serial number—of thousands of rifles of the same model.

"A lot of honest folks are going to be embarrassed by this," the detective comments. "Every time an investigator finds a rifle with this same number on it, it’ll be seized as evidence and reported as ‘recovered stolen property.’"

After several attempts, the detective reaches the officers who mistakenly placed the rifle’s patent number on the NCIC. They apologize for their mistake, realizing the impact this could have on many innocent people.

A correction is made through the FBI and the patent number is changed to the rifle’s serial number. "Sure glad we caught that one before things got out of hand," says the detective.