Richard Arends: Gascoyne cattle thief gets three-and-a-half years jail for crime bragged about as ‘good heist’

A cattle thief who plundered the stock of a neighbouring Indigenous corporation as it teetered on the brink of financial collapse has been jailed for three years and six months. Richard Arends, 46, and his partner Rachael Third were experiencing plenty of success running Edmund Station in Carnarvon thanks to a good rain the first year they bought the property. But then the farm was hit with three years of drought, forcing Arends to destock. In total, they lost 40 cattle and some horses. By 2020, Arends had resorted to crime to keep his station afloat, stealing an estimated 161 cattle worth $150,000 from Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corporation, the then-owner of the neighbouring Maroonah Station and also Mangaroon Station. Ownership tags were removed and replaced, and two additional earmarks were cut into the cattle in an attempt to conceal the theft. The District Court of WA was told how Arends had earlier been asked by an associate in a phone call if he had “done any poaching of the blackfellas’ property this year?” “Yes, we did. Just quietly. It’s for sale now,” Arends replied. “They have gone broke, actually. Not because of me, though. “We had quite a good heist ... Make hay while the sun shines. They have totally de-stocked now.” Arends was also found with a $20,000 bulldozer taken from a Rio Tinto site, which he used on his property for about four years despite knowing it was stolen. He told a psychologist that it had been abandoned and left to rot. Judge Charlotte Wallace told the court, “Clearly (Arends) had a level of contempt towards mining companies”. The loss of his own animals had left Arends “with a sense of grievance and a need to balance the ledger,” but there was also greed, Judge Wallace added. “The offending was clearly planned and premeditated in nature, and it had a level of sophistication to it,” she said. “You knowingly caused detriment to the victim ... you well understood the dire financial position of the victim. “You did so in a persistent and ongoing manner. And, given you knew the value of the cattle you were stealing, you understood ... you were causing some additional financial harm to that victim.” Arends will be eligible for parole after serving 18 months. Third was handed a 10-month jail term in November, wholly suspended for a year. Judge Wallace said the offending was “clearly instigated” by Arends. The pair were initially accused of stealing $800,000 worth of cattle — the majority of which were wild or “feral” as referred to in the livestock industry — from four stations, stemming from the 2021 bust of WA’s biggest-ever cattle rustling heist. But there was a plea deal and most of the charges were dropped and their trial vacated in return.