Former powerboat champion and convicted drug trafficker Kirk Roberts is to lose almost $1 million in personal assets deemed to have been the spoils of his criminal activity.

The amount represents his 50 percent share of a house and land at West Side Road in Sandys that has been identified in law as being a joint asset benefiting himself and his wife.

And the 44-year-old faces losing a further $900,000 should any further assets subsequently come to light, a judge has announced.

Roberts is serving a ten-year jail sentence after being found guilty in 2002 of conspiracy to import cannabis worth $1.4m to Bermuda.

An accomplice who gave evidence in the trial claimed 200lbs of cannabis was collected in St. Vincent and passed to Roberts when he was taken out to sea in December 2000 in a boat called the to rendezvous with a sail boat off Bermuda carrying the package of drugs.

Aware that Police were on the look out for the , Roberts was said to have hopped into an inflatable dinghy with the cannabis at a gap in the reef known as Eastern Blue Cut some five miles from Bermuda.

When the returned to Bermuda it was boarded and searched by Police but no drugs were found. The same day an abandoned grey inflatable dinghy was discovered at Crawl Bay, Sandys Parish ? again no drugs were found, but within two days Police uncovered 936.8 grams of cannabis at the West Side Road property where building work was being done.

The drugs were believed to be part of the 200lb package as an incriminating hand-written note was found with the cannabis. The note related to an amount of money Roberts? accomplice testified he had been expecting to receive, along with other references including: ?running all over the Caribbean,? ?100 in each bags? and ?sell fast and expensive!?

Since Roberts? conviction extensive background checks have been carried out into his financial affairs and ownership of assets in order to identify what can be confiscated from him regarding wealth he is assumed to have amassed as a result of his drug-trafficking ? which in law covers a six-year period before the crime for which he was convicted. Taking into account a variety of bank account transactions and the complicated ownership history of the West Side Road property, Puisne Judge Ian Kawaley ruled that a confiscation order of $926,531 be paid by Roberts? in regard to the Sandys property, which is valued at nearly $1.9m. This represents Roberts? 50 percent interest in the property along with calculations relating to mortgage payments and unaccounted building costs.

If further assets belonging to Roberts? are found he can expect to have the confiscation total topped up to a maximum of $1,822,754, which is the amount of money Mr. Justice Kawaley believes can be said to relate to drug-trafficking activity undertaken by Roberts in the six years leading up to his arrest in December 2000. The confiscation order was pursued by the Director of Public Prosecutions under the Proceeds of Crime Act 1997. The case has been delayed during the past four years while Roberts? conducted unsuccessful appeals to the Court of Appeal and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.