By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE
An extensive investigation has failed to determine how much meat was stolen from a Bay of Plenty processing works in a large-scale racket that was busted in June.
"We have got to the bottom of how it all happened, but we haven't been able to get a very accurate figure on what was lost," said Affco's operations manager, Coll MacRury.
The system of on-going thefts from the Rangiuru works near Te Puke over eight to 12 months was clever, he said.
"It's difficult to say how much [meat] went."
A "real guess" was that the value of the pilfered stock was nowhere near the $800,000 quoted by some sources. It was probably closer to a quarter of that sum.
The Serious Fraud Office, which investigates dishonesty involving more than $500,000, had not been involved and Affco did not refer the matter to the police, Mr MacRury said.
Private investigators called in by the company thought meat, mainly lamb, had been filched at a rate of three to 12 cartons a week, he said.
Each carton contained 18kg of meat and the plant produced 6000 to 8000 cartons a day.
"The volume of [stolen] product was small," he said.
Three Rangiuru staff members who worked in the plant's chiller section and a fourth who drove a truck were sacked two months ago.
A further 11 people from a cool store operation and a trucking company have been dealt with by their own employers, who held separate inquiries.
Mr MacRury refused to discuss their involvement.
Distribution of the stolen meat would have been "basically internal" among those taking part in the illicit operation, but he thought there could have been some on-selling on the blackmarket.
The thieving started after the installation of a new computer inventory control system in Rangiuru. It had "a few glitches", sometimes failing to scan labels correctly, and "these guys knew that", said Mr MacRury.
Stock with faulty coding would disappear while waiting to go back for reprocessing. It took about six months before management realised what was happening.
A further three months were spent waiting to catch "the whole ring".
Although the scam was "bad enough," said Mr MacRury, it had been portrayed publicly as much bigger than it actually was.
He knew of meat companies which had lost much more in the past but had kept the thefts quite.
Some Rangiuru staff had been shocked by what had happened but the viability of the plant had not been affected, he said.
A similar situation "absolutely couldn't happen again" after changes to documentation procedures.
Meat Union Aotearoa secretary Graham Cooke said workers knew they faced instant dismissal for stealing from employers.
Meat scam losses unknown
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