Sydney rock oysters, prized for their flavour and rarity, have been targeted by thieves, with one NSW farm losing 400,000 oysters in a single robbery. Photograph: Paris Spellson/AlamyView image in fullscreenSydney rock oysters, prized for their flavour and rarity, have been targeted by thieves, with one NSW farm losing 400,000 oysters in a single robbery. Photograph: Paris Spellson/AlamyNow you seafood, now you don’t: $350k worth of oysters vanish without a trace in NSWAbout 400,000 juvenile Sydney rock oysters were taken from an oyster farm on state’s mid-north coast earlier this year, police say
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Police are on the hunt for a seafood swindler after 400,000 oysters were allegedly stolen from a farm at a river on the New South Wales mid-north coast.
About 320 bags of juvenile oysters, worth an estimated $350,000, were taken from an oyster farm in Scotts Creek, Oxley Island, earlier this year, according to NSW police.
Officers received a report of the theft on Tuesday morning and are urging members of the public with CCTV or dashcam footage to come forward.
Latitude 31 Oyster Co, which runs a Sydney rock oyster farm on Manning River adjacent to Scotts Creek, on Tuesday revealed it had been the target of a “massive” oyster theft that had been reported to police.
“Oyster theft impacts far more than just the individual farmer. It affects our businesses, our families and the reputation of the entire NSW oyster industry,” the business wrote in a social media post.
“There are a lot of good people in this industry, and we know farmers look out for each other.”
The business urged the community to look out for anyone who is trying to move, or has suddenly come into possession of, a large quantity of cocktail or bistro-sized oysters.
Latitude 31 Oyster Co said the stolen oysters were not ready for immediate sale and would need to be grown for another four to six months.
Guardian Australia has contacted Latitude 31 Oyster Co to confirm the thefts are the same.
Oyster farmer Gary Rodley, who owns Tathra Oysters on the NSW south coast, said fully grown oysters could be worth significantly more, estimating they could fetch about $1.50 to $2 a piece.
The age of the stolen molluscs and the amount taken suggests the culprit could be a fellow producer, he said.
“That’s not a theft where someone’s getting a feed of oysters,” he said.
“That’s disturbing to think that it might be a one of our peers in the industry.
“It’s a very high-risk activity that person’s carrying out, and I would fancy that they would come unstuck very quickly doing that sort of thing.”
A Manning River oyster farmer, who wished to remain anonymous, said there had been a recent shortage of the coveted Sydney rock oyster.
Major flooding in 2021 and 2025 wiped oyster stocks in the region, and because Sydney rock oysters are farmed on a three-year cycle, it could take another two years before farmers’ incomes stabilise.
“The worst case scenario is it could be someone within the industry that has had a shortfall, who has gone past that area of the river and knows it only gets used certain times of year, and they’ve gone ‘they’ll never know until they get back’,” he said.
Theft is not uncommon in the Manning River area, but when he has been targeted, his oysters were taken by locals who had all year to scope out the area.
The farmer took the issue into his own hands and bought an artificial oyster with a tracker from France that cost more than $2,000.
It allowed him to take a thief to court in 2022, where the culprit was fined $500.
Many oyster farmers, including Rodley, have bought surveillance equipment to act as a deterrent as demand for Sydney rock oysters has grown.
“They’re a rare oyster that only grow up and down the New South Wales coastline, so they’re a very, very small percentage of the world’s oyster crop,” he said.
“It’s regarded as probably the best flavoured oyster in the world by a lot of people – they’re a very flavoursome oyster and highly regarded as a table oyster that’s eaten natural.
“That’s a particular set of circumstances that a lot of people value highly.”
A crime scene has been established and police investigations are ongoing.
