A southern Queensland man has been charged for allegedly stealing cattle gallstones from an abattoir outside Toowoomba. 
 
 The 38-year-old is accused of stealing the gallstones, which are prized in eastern medicine and can be worth $20,000 a kilogram, over six months from the Oakey slaughterhouse. 
 
 The Toowoomba stock and rural crime investigation squad this week raided a property at Cranley and a 38-year-old man was charged. He will appear in the Toowoomba magistrates court on 23 June. 
 
 “Having dealings with the industry … we know that in the abattoir game they do actually lock up and secure these gallstones, because of their value, but it’s definitely not something we’ve come across too often,” said Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Brendan Murphy of the Toowoomba stock and rural crime investigations squad. 
 
 Murphy said police had to act fast because the small gallstones are easy to dispose of. 
 
 “There was a good chance they were going to be in the fridge,” he said. “If they weren’t in the fridge we would have been looking all day.” 
 
 Cattle gallstones are used in alternative medicine to treat hepatitis and other liver and gall bladder-related ailments. 
 
 
 
 They form in a variety of shapes and sizes, and their value is determined by colour, texture, size and dryness. 
 
 
 
 “It appears to me a bit like valuing gemstones - you have good ones and bad ones,” Murphy said. 

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 Police have uncovered allegedly stolen gallstones at a Toowoomba property. Photo: Supplied 
 
 A 38-year-old man has been charged with stealing cattle gallstones, which can apparently sell for as much as $20,000 a kilogram. 
 
 The stones are used in traditional Chinese medicine under the belief they can treat hepatitis and other liver and heart-related diseases. 
 
 Acting on a tip-off, officers from the Stock and Rural Crime Investigation Squad (SARCIS) raided a property in the Toowoomba suburb of Cranley on Thursday, uncovering a hoard of the stones. 
 
 Police allege they were stolen from a nearby abattoir over six months and are believed to be of "considerable value". 
 
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 Toowoomba SARCIS Senior Constable Glenn Evans said the stones had been valued but he wouldn't say how much they were worth. 
 
 "It was less than half a kilo, of varying quality," he said. 
 
 "They certainly weren't all top-quality stones. 
 
 "We don't want to blow it out of proportion. It was nowhere near the $20,000 mark." 
 
 He says gallstone theft does happen but it's not common. 
 
 "I couldn't comment on how often but it isn't common because if you consider there aren't that many avenues for collecting them," he said. 
 
 Gallstones are small, hard masses that form in the gallbladder from a digestive fluid called bile and can be very painful. 
 
 Griffith University traditional chinese medicine (TCM) expert Dr Yunjiang Feng said gallstones were a "very common" ingredient among practitioners. 
 
 "It is believed however it formed should have some effect to cure where it is produced," she said. 
 
 "They believe the stone is formed in problems with cattle between heart and liver, therefore this can be used to treat diseases related to (those) organs. 
 
 "So as a result it can be used for many different things related to heart and liver disease." 
 
 Dr Feng said although there were many TCM practitioners in Australia, she believed cattle gallstones would mostly be sent overseas to China and other Asian countries where the practice was more common. 
 
 She said she imagined the stones would offer "some black market attractions" because they were in high demand. 
 
 A SARCIS blog post said the value was determined by dryness, colour, texture, size and whole and broken pieces. 
 
 "Whole, smooth, lustrous, golden specimens attract the highest price," the post read. 
 
 "Dark and pitted stones as well as stones with calcium inclusions (white) are of reduced value. 
 
 "It is understood that quality stones may reach values of around $20,000 per kilogram." 
 
 Contrary to popular belief, gallstones were not an aphrodisiac, police said. 
 
 Gold Coast-based cattle gallstone trader Jenny Murtagh told the ABC gallstones were used in Eastern medicine for heart, liver and general wellbeing. 
 
 "It doesn't cure anything but it's a highly prized product," she said. 
 
 The 38-year-old man will face a charge of theft in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court on June 23. 
 
 The Australian Medical Association warns there is a substantial gap between the use of complementary medicine, including traditional Chinese medicine, and the evidence to support that use. 
 
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– Do a quick scan for "cow gallstones" on the Alibaba website and you'll see that they're quite in demand, whether you want to buy them by the gram, kilogram, or ton. So a 38-year-old Australian man accused of stealing a whole bunch of them must have thought he hit the jackpot at the Oakey slaughterhouse in the Australian town of Toowoomba in Queensland, allegedly sneaking out the tiny stones over a six-month period, the Guardian reports. So why are they so valuable? They're often used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatments—their supposed claim to fame is that they can treat hepatitis, heart diseases, and other various ailments, the Brisbane Times notes—and they're said to be worth up to $20,000 a kilo. The local stock-and-rural crime unit found the gallstone hoard after raiding a suburban property and checking in … the refrigerator. "There was a good chance they were going to be in the fridge," a detective who helped with the investigation says, per the Guardian. "If they weren't in the fridge, we would have been looking all day." A TCM expert at Queensland's Griffith University says that even though Australia is home to plenty of TCM practitioners, she suspects the stones would have been shipped off to Asia. Toowoomba's senior constable points out, however, that even though the stones were of "considerable value," the thief never would have gotten top dollar. "It was less than half a kilo, of varying quality," he says, per the Brisbane Times. "It was nowhere near the $20,000 mark."