A Bermudian drug trafficker who was given a probation order here five years ago after admitting importing $1.7 million worth of cocaine, heroin and ecstasy could be facing a life sentence in the States.

Anthony Quinton Beach pleaded guilty last Friday in Georgia to three counts of conspiracy to possess drugs with intent to supply.

He can expect to get at least ten years in prison when he is sentenced in November but may be jailed for life for the most serious offence involving crack cocaine. He is understood to be in custody in Union City, Georgia.

Beach, from Devonshire, walked out of Supreme Court in Bermuda in September 2002 with a two-year probation order despite pleading guilty to importing $1.7 million of drugs to the Island the previous March.

A change in the law here meant he could not be sentenced for the entire stash of drugs because they were intercepted and substituted for smaller amounts before they got here by US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in New York.

The 45-year-old, himself a crack cocaine and heroin addict, was also given an 18-month jail term already served on remand. He took an overdose the day after the sentence, was found in an incoherent state in his car and later returned to court for breaching his probation order and taking illegal drugs.

The charges he admitted in the US last week relate to at least 500 grams of cocaine, 100 grams of heroin and 50 grams of crack which he intended to distribute in the northern district of Georgia and elsewhere between November 1997 and March 2001. The latter charge carries a minimum ten-year jail term and a maximum sentence of life.

Eight other allegations will be dismissed when he is sentenced by Judge Richard Story in the US District Court in Atlanta in the autumn.

DEA agents arrested Beach, 45, last September as he tried to return to Bermuda from Jamaica via Miami. He had been thrown out of Jamaica for overstaying his visa and was wanted in the US for drugs offences.

The Jamaica Observer reported that he was originally indicted in America in February 2003 but fled to the Caribbean island in July 2006 after failing to attend a court hearing.

The newspaper said he was wanted by the US for allegedly operating a drug smuggling ring between Atlanta, Georgia, Bermuda and Jamaica.

Beach, previously of Ariel View Road, Devonshire, gave Jamaican Police his address as Alexandra Road in the same parish and told them he was a painter and decorator.

Back in 2001, the father-of-five was accused by Bermudian prosecutors of 20 counts of importing, handling and possessing heroin. He eventually pleaded guilty to importation of cocaine, heroin and ecstasy.

Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons said he could not be sentenced for bringing $1.7 million worth of drugs to the Island, since it was DEA agents who brought most of the narcotics in after a sting operation.

They intercepted the drugs Beach intended to be sent here in golf bags and replaced them with smaller controlled samples. Ms Justice Simmons sentenced Beach for importing just 6.95 grams of cocaine.

A bid by the Crown to seize almost $350,000 worth of his assets had earlier failed in the Supreme Court. The same judge said prosecutors failed to prove his assets were derived from drug trafficking.

The court heard that Beach had been sending money out of the country to the mothers of his children in the US and Jamaica and that he had given around $10,000 to his father to take care of bills.