Three local men were allegedly involved in an international plot that saw four handguns, 164 bullets and $25,000 worth of cannabis discovered in a package at the airport.

Pembroke residents Justin Calderon and Kershun Dublin, both 25, and Arthur Dill, 45, were arrested during a Police sting mounted after the contraband was found.

They deny conspiring to possess the firearms and ammunition, and conspiring to import the drugs, and went on trial at Supreme Court yesterday.

Prosecutor Robert Welling alleged in his opening speech that the trio plotted with others not before the court. The contraband is said to have been concealed in an orange toolbox packed inside a DHL courier box, which was mailed from Florida. A sniffer dog was alerted to the drugs during a search at the airport last April 28. The guns, ammunition and cannabis were found when the package was X-rayed.

Mr. Welling explained the parcel was addressed to a Terry Stevens, of Gilbert Hill, Smith's, who is a real person. However, Mr. Stevens never asked anyone to ship the toolbox. Likewise, the cell phone contact number listed on the package belonged to Antoinette Bolden but she never asked for anything to be shipped either.

Mr. Welling told the jury that Police officers decided to carry out a "controlled delivery" of the parcel, and put it back into the DHL circulation to see who picked it up. Ten days later, he alleged, each of the three defendants "became involved in possession of the box".

Dill is said to have attended the DHLoffices in Serpentine Road, Pembroke, and signed for the box using the name Terry Stevens. Mr.Welling told the jury they will hear from a woman named Tianna Paiva, a friend of Dublin's, who was asked by Dublin to assist with her car in moving the box.Mr. Welling said the box was dropped in Crane Lane,Pembroke, and ended up being "spirited away" from the car to a shed in Mission Lane.He alleged that it was handled at this point by three or four men including Calderon and Dublin.Police arrived on the scene soon after the box was taken away, and Calderon and Dill were later arrested. Dill, of Orchard Grove, Pembroke, was detained in nearby Footpath Lane. Mr. Welling told the jury:"He didn't live in that area. The prosecution says it's no coincidence that he was found in the very area that the orange box was discovered."Calderon was found in Crane Lane, walking away from Mission Lane, where he lives. The prosecutor explained that Crane and Mission Lanes both run uphill from North Shore, parallel to each other. Both meet Footpath Lane at the top. Mr. Welling did not state when or where Dublin, of North Shore Road, was arrested. However, he went on to tell the jury that the box in question had the outer wrappings removed and was placed at the back of a shed just outside Calderon's home address. It was said to have been hidden among trash and a mattress cover. Calderon and Dublin's palm prints were later found on the box, under the outer wrappings. "These two gentlemen touched that box after the wrapping had been removed," alleged Mr. Welling. He told the jury that the facts should lead the jury to conclude that the accused trio were part of a criminal conspiracy, along with others, and "these defendants were in that conspiracy from the beginning".Police armourer John Kirkpatrick was present when the Police unpacked the guns from the toolbox. He told the trial that they were all potentially lethal weapons. He listed them as being a .32 calibre revolver, which was found unloaded, a .38 calibre revolver containing four live rounds, an unloaded Ruger .357 calibre Magnum revolver, and a Glock 19 9mm semi-automatic pistol loaded with a magazine of nine live rounds.A further 101 rounds of the same type of 9mm ammunition were found wrapped in a ball around the Glock pistol, and a cardboard box containing 50 rounds of .357 bullets to fit the Ruger was also discovered inside the tool box.Narcotics officer Walter Jackson explained that he and other officers attended Crane Lane at 12.40 p.m. last May 8, looking for the orange tool box which had been collected from DHL. He explained that he saw Arthur Dill standing by the roadside on Footpath Lane, next to a motorcycle and with other Police officers around him. Detective Constable Jackson questioned Dill under caution. The suspect told him that a person named "Smalls" who lived onNorth Shore had given him the motorcycle. He explained he did not know the real name of Smalls but that he came to his home earlier that day, offering him $20 for a "hustle" to pick up a toolbox from the mail, and giving him $100 to pay for the parcel.Dill explained that Smalls and "a white girl" turned up at the mail centre on Serpentine Road in a black car, and he put the box in the back for them before going home. He said he was in Footpath Lane because he'd come to wash his cousin's car. Dill described Smalls as short, with yellow skin and brown curly hair, and said he believed his real name began with a "K". He said he accepted the hustle because he needed the money and that he did not know what was in the toolbox, but believed it contained tools.He gave a similar account in a subsequent tape-recorded Police interview, which was played to the jury yesterday afternoon.All three men deny the charges against them, and the case continues.