A drugs mule from Aruba was jailed for nine years for bringing almost $164,000 of cocaine and heroin into Bermuda.

Egberto Marcello Pantophlet , 30, claimed he was acting through fear of a man he owed money in his home country, who threatened to harm his ailing mother in a threatening phone call.

Begging Chief Justice Richard Ground for leniency, Pantophlet said he had not met his five-month-old son due to his incarceration.

"I humbly apologise before you for what I've done. It was not a plot on my part to make some money or to be some sort of drug dealer, but I made a wrong choice and put my confidence in somebody who ended up taking me and using me as a mule," he claimed in Supreme Court on Monday.

However, Mr. Justice Ground told him such drugs are "a poison to society in Bermuda" and the Island must take steps to protect itself.

Pantophlet had earlier pleaded guilty to importing the drugs and also possessing them with intent to supply on February 26 this year. Crown counsel Cindy Clarke told the court he arrived in Bermuda on a flight from Newark International Airport, New Jersey.

During an inspection by Customs officials, his luggage was ion scanned and tested positive for cocaine. He was searched, and nothing was found, but he consented to being taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and x-rayed.

Ms Clarke said foreign objects were detected in his abdomen, at which point he told them he had swallowed six hundred grams of cocaine. He was kept in hospital where he excreted 68 pellets in the period up to March 7. These were seized by Police and analysis later showed them to be 67 cocaine pellets and one of heroin, with a total street value of $163,755.

Pantophlet was arrested and taken to Hamilton Police station. He admitted swallowing the drugs and importing them to Bermuda, but said his original intention had been to take them to New Jersey where someone else would collect them and bring them to the Island.

He also told Police he was to receive payment of $6,000 for the drugs run.

Pantophlet faced a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for the offences and Ms Clarke said it was "particularly unfortunate" for the defendant that while there was just one pellet of heroin, this drug automatically earned him a 50 percent increase in whatever sentence the judge decided upon.

Pantophlet's lawyer, Rick Woolridge Jr., said his client was a father of three children at the time of the offence who found himself in difficult circumstances through unemployment in Aruba.

"He is not the deal-maker but a mule — a mule whose back is against the wall," he said.

The defendant told the court he was out of work due to an "illegal alien problem" in Aruba and ended up owing a man $1,800.

"He told me if I transported these drugs to New Jersey I would be able to repay him the money and still have money in my pocket," he said.

However, he claimed he was "set up" and ordered to go to Bermuda when no-one met him in New Jersey. "I had no idea where Bermuda is. I thought it was a country on the other side of the world," he told the court.

He explained that customs officials became suspicious when he claimed in a spur-of-the moment excuse that his purpose in visiting the Island was diving — despite it being February.