PGG Wrightson stock agent Chris McBride reckons "brazen" thieves who fleeced Masterton's stockyard of 34 speciality sheep pen gates may have sold the steel on the black market.
"They've either been sold for scrap, gone to a piggery somewhere or cut up," Mr McBride said.
The stockyard, on Norfolk Road in Carterton
district, was hit twice over the past two weeks. Last Tuesday 19 pen gates were stolen and on Thursday a further 15 went missing. The 50mm galvanised-steel piping used to make the pen gates can fetch anywhere between $350 and $500 per tonne, according to scrap yards canvassed in Wairarapa and Wellington.
Mr McBride estimates each gate weighs on average 50kg meaning they could be worth up to $25 each if a buyer could be found.
PGG Wrightson stock agent Mark Graham, who lives near the stock yard, may have been instrumental in foiling the thieves' third attempt at getting more pen gates when he was alerted to three men acting suspiciously after talking to a neighbour on the phone around 8pm Sunday.
"I was telling my neighbour what had been going on and he said 'you mean like those guys down there?'.
"And I was off no bloody fear, I had my cellphone and called police.
"I talked to the guy driving the van & now we're even more determined to catch these guys," Mr Graham said Masterton police Sergeant Glenn Taplin said the occupants of the van, from Upper Hutt, were apprehended soon afterwards and have been questioned, with police continuing inquiries after 15 more gates were found stockpiled and "ready to be swiped", in the yard on Sunday night.
Carterton police Senior Constable Harvey Pope said police believe the sheep pen gates were taken for scrap. "You couldn't use them for farm gates as they are too low they're only 800mm high."
Mr Pope said police are interviewing witnesses. "With the price of scrap metal these types of thefts are becoming more prevalent."
The yard, jointly owned by PGG Wrightson and Elders, has hundreds of the pen gates and Mr McBride said engineers are currently manufacturing replacements for the 34 stolen so far.
