Information from staff spurred a Manukau warehouse to do a stocktake which revealed that $480,000 worth of milk powder was missing, the Manukau District Court heard yesterday.
Richard Tyson, the site manager of Linfox Logistics, told a depositions hearing that the information led him to carry out a full stocktake of the distribution company's entire warehouse on June 5 this year.
He said 120 pallets of milk powder, weighing an average of 1.6 tonnes and worth $4000 each, were missing from a Dairy Board stockpile.
He could not recall any other losses from the warehouse that had not been accounted for.
Mr Tyson said milk powder was the only product missing from the warehouse, which stored a range of bulk goods for companies.
Police say up to 120 pallets were taken from the export stockpile over three months from April 1.
Four men are charged with the burglary of the Linfox warehouse. They are Joseph William Murray sen, aged 45, his nephew Joseph William Murray jun, 26, both truck drivers, Kevin John Barnard, 39, an arms dealer, and Mikaele Silivale, 61, a security guard.
Joseph Perese, a security guard employed at Linfox between December last year and July who occasionally worked with Silivale, said trucks would stop at the security gatehouse only if they did not know where they were going or if the security guard had not seen them and did not know to raise the barrier arm.
Under cross-examination, Mr Perese agreed that there was nothing unusual about a truck driving straight into Linfox without stopping at the gatehouse.
The security guard's only duty was to note the registration number and the time the truck arrived.
Mr Perese also agreed that standard practice was to allow trucks to leave without stopping them.
Samson Walters, of truck hire company TR Group, identified the two Murrays in the court. He said Murray sen had hired vehicles and Murray jun was a driver.
Stocktake revealed milk powder deficit
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