A jury heard how customs officers discovered packages of cannabis hidden in a box shipped to Bermuda as the trial of two men began in court.

Melvin Simmons and Kanhai Armstrong have both denied charges that they conspired to import cannabis into Bermuda and sell the controlled drug.

The offences were alleged to have taken place between an unknown date and August 5, 2020.

As the trial began yesterday in the Supreme Court, prosecutors said that Mr Simmons had attempted to collect the package found to contain the drugs, which were said to be worth “in the six figures”.

Prosecutors told the court that evidence would also show that Mr Armstrong not only was aware of the drug smuggling plot, but was “very much involved”.

Customs officer Larry Marshall Jr, the first witness in the trial, said that on August 5, 2020, he was working at the Queen’s Warehouse when he was tasked with examining the contents of a container that had come from the Bermuda Forwarders warehouse.

He told the court that a K9 unit had alerted the team to one box within the container, which had the name “Calvin Wade” on it.

“We carried out an investigation into the rest of the packages, parcels and boxes in the container,” he said. “They were all negative.

“We then closed up the container and the box that was alerted to was taken to the X-ray machine.”

Mr Marshall said the X-ray revealed that the box contained an ottoman, along with a series of unknown objects.

He brought the findings to his supervisor and the package was taken to the Bermuda Police Service.

Under cross-examination by Marc Daniels, counsel for Mr Armstrong, Mr Marshall said he did not recall any smell emanating from the box.

Detective Constable O’Neil Swaby said that later that day the box was opened and found to contain a black leather ottoman.

He said that officers discovered 11 heat-sealed plastic packages inside the ottoman, which contained a plantlike material.

Mr Swaby said the contents of the packages were removed and placed in police evidence bags before the ottoman was placed back in the box and returned to customs officers.

He told the court that, acting on information several days later, on August 10, he attended the Tynes Bay Waste-to-Energy facility.

“I saw the ottoman and the box in the dump area, the section they called the tipping area, among the trash,” he said.

Mr Swaby added that the ottoman had been “ripped open”, but he could not recall the condition of the box.

Under cross-examination he accepted that he did not mention in his official statements that the ottoman had been ripped open, but said there was no particular reason for the omission.

The trial is set to continue next week.

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