A man accused of a drug smuggling plot was seen bringing a package into a Pembroke warehouse the same day he collected a box, which had contained cannabis.

A search of the warehouse two days later revealed a brown bag containing what a witness said appeared to be sand.

Melvin Simmons and Kanhai Armstrong have both denied charges that they conspired with others 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.

The court previously heard that 11 packages containing a total of 6,167.6g of cannabis were found by customs officers on that date, hidden inside an ottoman.

After the drugs were removed, the box was returned to customs and collected from Best Shipping by Mr Simmons on the morning of August 10.

The ottoman was later found ripped open at the dumping area at the Tynes Bay waste disposal facility.

Meredith Paynter told the court that in August of 2020 she was working as the office manager for Vault, where Mr Simmons was employed as a driver.

She told the court that as part of her job, she would give the drivers printed work orders in the morning, and contact them on the phone if additional work orders arrived.

Ms Paynter said that on August 10, 2020, Mr Simmons had picked her up from a garage where she had dropped off her car and drove her to the office in his personal vehicle.

She said that the other driver employed by the company was on holiday that day and that she had given Mr Simmons some work orders, although she could not recall how many.

As the day progressed, she said she attempted to call Mr Simmons to come back to the office but was unable to reach him.

“I was calling and there was no contact with him,” she said. “He didn’t answer.”

She told the court that drivers were not supposed to use work vehicles for non-work business without being given permission and none of the work orders for the day required Mr Simmons to pick up a package from Best Shipping or drop anything off at Tynes Bay.

Ms Paynter said she also knew Mr Armstrong, because he worked as a driver for Data Storage, a business which was linked to Vault.

Shown CCTV footage from August 10, she identified Mr Armstrong interacting with Mr Simmons shortly after he had dropped her off at Vault at about 8.30am that day.

In a second clip, recorded later that morning, she identified Mr Armstrong getting into the back of Mr Simmons’s work van while Mr Simmons was at the front of the vehicle.

Mr Armstrong shut the van door behind him but left the vehicle soon after.

Alan Oatley, who was manager of Vault at the time, told the court that on August 12 he was sent CCTV footage from inside the company’s warehouse, recorded on August 10.

In the footage, he said he saw Mr Simmons enter the warehouse with what appeared to be a package under his arm, which he described as a manilla envelope, and leaving without it.

Mr Oatley said he, the company president and another employee subsequently searched the warehouse and found what he believed to be the package on a shelf on top of a box.

“All the boxes in the warehouse are standard size storage boxes,” he said. “This was just a package sitting on top of a box.”

He said the package appeared to contain “sand or something” and they called police to notify them of the discovery.

Mr Oatley said access to the warehouse was controlled by access cards and that the only people with cards were himself, Mr Simmons and the second driver who was on holiday.

He said that after the discovery he restricted access to the warehouse to himself alone, but that same day someone attempted to get into the warehouse with the card of the second driver, who Mr Oatley said was still away.

Under cross-examination, Mr Oatley confirmed that the “manilla envelope” was actually a brown paper bag, but that it looked like an envelope in the CCTV footage.

He also accepted that the package was left “in the open”. He added: “I expected it would be put inside a box if something was being concealed but the package was just put on a shelf.”

The trial continues.

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