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POLICE have arrested two men from the Melbourne area who will be charged with the vandalism of the rockface at Paradise Falls in Cheshunt in May this year.
A Victoria Police spokesperson said a 24-year-old Rosebud man and a 25-year-old Hastings man were arrested by officers on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old was located in Melbourne's CBD, and Whitfield police have charged him with criminal damage as well as charges against the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 for damaging the culturally significant site at Paradise Falls.
He was bailed to appear before the Wangaratta Magistrates' Court on 29 September.
Detectives from Mornington searched the second man’s address in Hastings and he will be charged at a later date with the same offences.
Victoria Police Leading Senior Constable Paul Guy said it was part of an investigation which ended with a coordinated operation to apprehend the suspects.
He said the representatives of the local Indigenous community had been notified of the arrests.
Parks Victoria officers found Cheshunt's Paradise Falls waterfall, which has cultural significance to the Aboriginal community, to have been vandalised on 12 May this year.
The rockface of the popular tourism destination, at the base of the 31-metre waterfall, had been tagged with large scale graffiti approximately 10 metres wide and two metres high.
The Victoria Police spokesperson said specialist graffiti analysts from the Transit Divisional Response Unit assisted with the investigation.
Both Parks Victoria and Taungurung Land and Waters Council (TLaWC) said they were pleased to see arrests had been made in relation to the vandalism.
Parks Victoria regional director Kane Weeks said they will work closely with TLaWC to sensitively remove the graffiti from the base of the falls without causing further damage to the site.
TLaWC said in a statement Paradise Falls was a culturally significant site located on Taungurung Country, and the graffiti would be removed "with a focus on cultural sensitivity and healing, engaging with the Taungurung community in the process".
TLaWC says it continues to work with Victoria Police and First Peoples State Relations during this investigation.

