for possessing smuggled marijuana.

Mr. Tracy Tucker is believed to have spent nearly a month in jail before his conviction.

Details of his case were revealed by US officials this week.

It is understood he was staying in New York when he went to collect a piece of machinery off a flight at Kennedy airport.

The equipment -- an air compressor -- had been taken apart and packed with cannabis, a New York anti-drugs investigator told The Royal Gazette .

It had then been welded together again and painted over.

On arrival at the airport a customs dog sniffed the package, which was addressed to Mr. Tucker. Agents discovered two bricks of marijuana inside.

A New York detective took over the case, and a phone call was made to Mr.

Tucker telling him the package had arrived on American Airlines.

"He showed up and signed for it,'' said the investigator. "He was putting it into his truck at the time he was arrested.

"He was remanded because he was not a citizen of the US.'' Court records in Queens, New York, show that on October 18, Mr. Tucker admitted criminal possession of 30.8 pounds of marijuana in the second, less serious, degree. He was fined $2,000 with five years probation.

Commenting on the method used to hide the drug, the investigator said: "It was a hell of a lot of work for 30 pounds of grass.'' Mr. Tucker's phone in Bermuda has not been in service and he could not be contacted.

But an unsigned note handed to The Royal Gazette said he was expected back this week.

The typed note, headed "news release'', described Mr. Tucker as a construction firm owner from Devil's Hole.

It says he went to New York to buy saws for his business, and while there got a call from a "friend''.

According to the note, the friend asked him to return a piece of machinery, still under warranty, to the firm from which it had been bought.

Mr. Tucker was "arrested for importing cannabis'' when he arrived at the airport and asked about the machinery, the note says.

It added: "The charges of possession and trafficking were dropped since Mr.

Tucker was never in possession of the drug. Due to the lack of evidence, Mr.

Tucker was sentenced to five years of probation.''