BATON ROUGE - Three cattle rustlers have been arrested after they allegedly stole nearly $50,000 worth of livestock from a Baton Rouge-based dealer.

According to the Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry, Ricky, Wanda and Justin Thompson are accused of securing tens of thousands of dollars worth of cattle from Dominique's Livestock auction in October 2017 and never paying. The family, which owns R & W Cattle in Allen Parish, then allegedly sold the cattle off to livestock markets in Texas.

According to an arrest warrant, the trio stole $49,926 worth of cattle in total.

Louisiana has eight public livestock markets where producers can sell their livestock. Investigators say four of the eight livestock markets were targeted by the Thompsons.

All three were booked Thursday into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on charges of theft.