a GE stove got underway in Supreme Court yesterday.

A Customs officer acting on a hunch searched the stove at Hamilton docks on February 2 after it was shipped to Bermuda by the local firm Sea Venture.

He found a large package of cocaine stashed inside.

Narcotics Police were called and replaced the package with a dummy and then waited for the stove to be collected.

A trucker picked it up the next afternoon and delivered it to accountant Jerry Alexander Ming's apartment on Beacon Hill Road in Somerset, leaving it on the front porch as instructed, the court heard.

Ming, 29, denies importing the cocaine on or about January 31 and handling it with intent to supply.

Crown counsel Mr. Philip Storr said that around 5.30 p.m. on February 3, Ming arrived with his family, took the stove inside and about a half hour later left the apartment on a bike.

Police activated their siren and pursued him, but he sped away down a Tribe Road and escaped.

The officers returned to Ming's home with a search warrant and found the dummy package was gone, Mr. Storr said.

Soon after they got a phone call from Ming and his lawyer saying he had found cocaine and wanted to meet with Police.

Lawyer Mr. Archie Warner told the Court the cocaine was not Ming's and implied it could have been put in the stove by someone anywhere between the Connecticut appliance store Bernie's and his client's home.

But Mr. Storr argued it appeared Ming had gone to "a lot of trouble and expense'' to fly to America, buy the stove and then hire a rental truck to collect it himself and take it to Sea Venture's New Jersey terminal.

He did not take advantage of Sea Venture's or the store's offer to have it trucked directly to the New Jersey terminal, Mr. Storr said.

He added the stove cost $900, which was "virtually the same'' as it would have cost had he bought it in Bermuda.

The Crown's first witness, Sea Venture shipping owner/manager Benita DeSilva testified it was "unusual'' for a customer to collect a large appliance from a store themselves and then truck it to New Jersey.

She testified it did happen, but only five percent of the time.

Mr. Warner charged: "I suggest you are only saying that that mode of delivery was unusual because the Police suggested it to you.'' DeSilva pointed to her 15 years experience in the shipping business and insisted it was unusual for a customer to make his own arrangements for his purchase to get to her terminal.

She agreed with Mr. Warner the method was not unusual for Ming, who in the past had used her company but made his own arrangements to truck Bernie's goods to her terminal.

After questioning her about the security at her terminal, Mr. Warner further charged: "I suggest the nature of your operation in New Jersey is such that it lends itself to an unauthorised person putting contraband in goods destined for Bermuda.'' DeSilva replied there were only two ways of drugs reaching Bermuda, by ship and air.

She said she had not heard of the term "piggybacking''.

Mr. Warner explained that in the drug trade it meant putting contraband in consignments being shipped to Bermuda and then removing the drugs before they reaching the consignee.

She said she had heard of that going on.

However, she did not see where it would be possible at her New Jersey terminal, because the foreman and his men were on the dock at all times and a security camera monitored the area.

On Mr. Warner's suggestion that some of her employees could be corrupt, she said the terminal was run by a Bermudian woman and her family and friends who were longtime employees.