Two men accused of importing cocaine to Bermuda in auto parts were arrested after a Police stakeout, their Supreme Court trial heard yesterday.

Detective Sergeant Antoine Fox said that on April 5 2004 he was on duty as a narcotics officer when he and a colleague waited in an unmarked car outside the DHL courier service on Church Street, Hamilton.

They were, he said, waiting "for a person to come and pick up a package that contained controlled drugs".

The officer continued that after receiving information from other Police officers involved in the operation, he followed a taxi to Cedar Avenue where Jahmiko Hayward and Shannon Dwayne Julian Tucker were arrested. A chrome bumper wrapped in bubble wrap was inside the back of the cab.

Under questioning from Allan Doughty, representing Hayward, Det. Sgt. Fox said there was a "dummy package" found inside the bumper.

The officer told Mr. Doughty he had been incorrect in a statement made in August 2004 when he said the bumper was found during a search at a residence in North Shore Road, Hamilton Parish.

Senior Crown Counsel Paula Tyndale told the jury at the start of the trial that the auto parts in question were bought in St. Martin and shipped to Bermuda. One of them was found to contain tubes with cocaine inside. Ms Tyndale said Hayward went to claim the two-part shipment when it arrived in Bermuda, claiming to be Tucker.

She also said that between March 2004 and April 2004 there was correspondence between the two defendants, and between Hayward and courier service DHL's office in Bermuda, to get the shipment from the Caribbean.It is the prosecution case that when Tucker returned from St. Martin he had documents for that shipment, and a copy of a receipt for auto parts.

Ms Tyndale told the jury the pair both knew and intended that the shipment should arrive in Bermuda containing drugs.

Hayward, of Green Acres, Devonshire, and Tucker, of Broken Hill Lane, Smith's, deny the charges. The case continues.