A man accused of conspiring to import heroin was cleared yesterday by a unanimous verdict.

Luke Hill, 47, was found not guilty of the drug charge as well as two charges of money laundering after a weeklong trial in the Supreme Court.

During the trial, the court heard that a series of ten packages were seized by Bermuda Customs and found to contain diamorphine, better known as heroin.

While the amounts in the individual packages was small, the total sum of drugs seized was almost 80 grams — worth as much as $230,000 on the streets of Bermuda.

A handwriting expert found that while the packages had varying addresses, the handwriting on all the labels matched that of Mr Hill.

Prosecutors alleged that Mr Hill had masterminded the drug importation scheme and used other people’s bank accounts to exchange the profits from Bermuda dollars to American cash — a technique known as “smurfing”.

Mr Hill maintained his innocence throughout the trial. He told the court that he had written the labels at the request of John Thompson during a trip to London, but had no idea what the packages would be used for. He admitted using his own bank account, as well as those of two others, to exchange money but denied it was a part of any illegal activity.

He told the court he had been offering foreign workers without Bermudian bank accounts an “exchange service”, selling them US money for a small fee so they could send it to their families overseas.

After a period of deliberation, the jury delivered unanimous verdicts of not guilty on all three charges.

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