Cattle rustling, rescues and drug busts all in a day's work for the old Queensland stock squad

The words "stock squad" may evoke images of tracking cattle duffers across the dry and dusty plains of Australia.

But while the old Queensland stock squad is still running, it now operates under a new name: the Major Organised Crime Squad Rural (MOCSR).

The name may have changed, but there is one thing that hasn't — the squad still covers a lot of its beat on horseback.

Covering an area larger than Victoria

Detective Sergeant Mark Kerswell is the officer in charge of the Mareeba squad rural stock and his beat is about 337,000 square kilometres, an area larger than Victoria.

Please click here to read the rest of the article as it appears on the ABC Rural News website.

Article written by: Phil Brandel