Gippsland livestock agent Nathan Gibbon jailed over cattle export fraud and stolen bobcat found in farm shed

A veteran Gippsland livestock agent was busted perpetrating a sophisticated fraud that allowed him to sell substandard cattle at marked-up prices into the lucrative Chinese market.

Nathan Gibbon has been jailed over a rort in which he sold substandard cattle to the Chinese export market

A veteran Gippsland livestock agent has been jailed for perpetrating a sophisticated fraud that allowed him to sell substandard cattle at marked-up prices into the lucrative Chinese market.

Nathan Gibbon, 50, of Lardner, on Monday faced the Latrobe Valley County Court where Judge John Lewis said the previously respected businessman’s offending occurred as his second marriage was imploding and as he feared he would lose the business he had built up over decades.

He sentenced Gibbon to six months’ jail, followed by an 18 month community corrections order.

Gibbon’s supporters, seated in the public gallery, wiped tears away as his sentence was handed down and he was taken away to prison.

Gibbon had previously pleaded guilty to obtaining financial advantage by deception, and to a second, unrelated charge of handling stolen goods, which stemmed from the discovery of a stolen, $78,000 excavator on his property during a police raid.

Gibbon lied to police when they first asked him about the Bobcat, saying a man he didn’t know left the machine at his farm when his trailer got a flat tyre.

But police phone taps revealed Gibbon discussing plans to move the stolen Bobcat before investigators could return and seize it.

Gibbon’s offending meant cattle which did not meet strict rules for sale in China ended up there.

Nathan Gibbon has been a respected livestock agent and auctioneer for decades.

Judge Lewis said Gibbon’s offending had the potential to undermine the cattle industry’s reputation overseas, and that farmers who went to the effort and expense of raising cattle to the standard required by Chinese authorities had been deprived of lucrative sales.

Gibbon profited from the offending because cattle that meet China’s exacting standards command a higher price than those sold for consumption in Australia.

Investigators were able to prove Gibbon had lied on paperwork because a farm he claimed they had been raised on was not large enough for the number of cattle he sold.

Judge Lewis said Gibbon’s offending was “a little unusual” but was a “serious example” of obtaining financial advantage.

He said “with hindsight” the collapse of Gibbon’s marriage did not pose as much of a threat to his business as was thought at the time.

Judge Lewis said Gibbon was an “upright member of the community” until he chose to offend, and that his only other serious brush with the law involved removing the ear tag of a stray cow that had been hit by a car.

Judge Lewis said financial crimes like those committed by Gibbon were notoriously difficult to detect, and needed to be punished sternly to send a message to other would-be offenders.

Gibbon will be released from prison in January.

Originally published as Gippsland livestock agent Nathan Gibbon jailed over cattle export fraud and stolen bobcat found in farm shed