 The crime scene is not in a high-rise building in the Bronx or a hotel room in Las Vegas. This crime scene is thousands of kilometres of land scattered with livestock and eucalyptus trees. The evidence is not lipstick on a glass or a nine-millimetre gun conveniently left in a garbage bin but a discarded Benson & Hedges cigarette butt and a Landrover tyre tread mark left in the red earth. In remote properties across Queensland crime is as rife as it is in the inner city. The land is harsh. Graziers have to survive extended droughts and sudden floods all within a year, all potentially crippling. But if that is not enough they also fall victim to cattle theft; thefts that can make the difference between staying on the land or going bust; thefts that are difficult to police, hard to prove and sometimes impossible to prosecute. The team that are faced with this daunting task is the Queensland Stock Squad. Their patch is six times the size of England. They have learnt the skills specific to policing the outback - horseback riding, bush survival, a sharp eye for evidence hidden in the dust and an unswerving sense of loyalty to their workmates and the law. Cattle theft is now a highly organized crime; modern criminals use helicopters to muster thousands of dollars worth of cattle away from a property. Using huge road trains thieves quickly transport their stolen booty across state borders or turn them into steaks overnight with mobile abattoirs. Satellite phones and the Internet are tools that ensure the crooks a quick sale or a fast getaway. These crimes are siphoning a staggering $47 million out of an already stretched rural economy. But there is also the mundane and quirky, which can include sifting through years of faded receipts or trying to find a lost chook s owner. "Stock Squad" follows a team of detectives, whose beat is 1.7 million square kilometres of rugged country, as they bring justice to the outback and solve seemingly impossible crimes.