Men last week jailed over smuggling Danish pig semen into a West Australian piggery had also presided over severe, uncontrolled pollution, with authorities fielding complaints about a “disgusting” stench and piglet carcasses appearing along roadsides.

The company’s director and breeding manager were fined $500,000 over the smuggling of semen in shampoo bottles, aiming to increase the number of piglets born but breaching biosecurity laws forbidding introducing foreign genes, risking a serious virus dubbed ‘pig plague’ entering Australia.

The smuggling, led by the company’s board members and described by the judge as “blatant”, “arrogant” and “not worth the risk” to Australia’s biosecurity, was the culmination of years of controversy for the West Pinjarra facility.

In February an animal rights activist broke in and filmed footage, claiming the pigs were being kept in poor conditions. And for years before that, the owners of small family-owned cattle and sheep farms surrounding the piggery were complaining to state environmental regulators about an offensive stench spreading for kilometres, and even sightings of piglet carcasses on the roadside.