Victoria Police has established a new Police Livestock and Farm Crime Specialist Group, fulfilling a pre-election pledge made by the Baillieu Government.
The known cost of stock theft in Victoria is about $500,000 per annum and reported theft of sheep has jumped 129% over the past financial year.
It’s believed that many thefts have previously gone unreported to Police or have gone unrecorded in central databases, so these figures may be an underestimate.
The Victorian Farmers Federation has called on farmers to report all stock theft, so that the police have accurate statistics on the problem and the effectiveness of the new Group can be assessed.
