A Bermudian drug trafficker who used Cabinet Minister Neletha Butterfield's son as one of his couriers has been sentenced to more than 11 years in prison without parole in the US.

Anthony Quinton Beach pleaded guilty to a conspiracy involving $1.7 million worth of cocaine, heroin and crack at the US District Court in Atlanta.

The 45-year-old, from Devonshire, was captured by US detectives last September as he tried to return to Bermuda from Jamaica via Miami.

They charged him with 11 counts related to a drug smuggling operation between Jamaica, the States and here from November, 1997 until March, 2001.

He admitted three counts of possession with intent to distribute at least 500 grams of cocaine, at least 100 grams of heroin and at least 50 grams of crack as part of a plea bargain and the other offences were dismissed.

Beach had already served 18 months on remand in Bermuda for offences connected to the drugs ring — time served which was taken into account in the latest sentencing.

He escaped a long prison sentence here in 2002 because officers from the US Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA) involved in the sting operation which originally trapped him in March, 2001 removed most of the drugs which had been placed in a golf bag to be collected by him before the bag reached the Island.

Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons said he could only be punished for the remaining drugs and gave him a two-year probation order.

The Royal Gazette has this week received a transcript of Beach's plea hearing in Atlanta in August, which reveals that one of Beach's drugs mules was Environment Minister Ms Butterfield's son Jeffrey, also known as MaClane Charles Jeffrey Butterfield.

Prosecutor Sandra Strippoli told that hearing that Beach told detectives in 2001 that he had been dealing drugs with a supplier in Jamaica called Barker for about seven years.

She said he admitted using several individuals — named in the transcript as Nathan Richardson, Jeffrey Butterfield, Lamont Simons and a person known as Bean — to bring drugs from Jamaica to Bermuda.

Ms Strippoli said Bermuda Police Service told the DEA that Butterfield would make such a trip in May 2000. "When Butterfield was returning from Jamaica and changing planes in Miami, he was arrested," she said.

"He had swallowed and was internally carrying heroin and cocaine and also had additional drugs secreted in hidden compartments in hair and shoe brushes. Butterfield cooperated and admitted that he was making the trip for Beach."

The Royal Gazette reported in January 2001 that Butterfield was sentenced to 37 months in prison after he admitted importing 100 grams of heroin at Miami International Airport.

Beach could have received a life sentence for his offence involving crack but was instead given 133 months in jail for each of the three counts to run concurrently by Judge Richard Story.

Ms Strippoli told the August hearing that Beach was caught after the DEA developed a confidential source in late 2000 who had made several trips from Atlanta to Bermuda carrying a golf bag to give to him. In March 2001 the source and an undercover DEA agent agreed to another trip.

She said Beach's father Maxwell drove the source and the DEA agent to the airport in Atlanta and gave them a golf bag to take to Bermuda, advising them that Beach would take possession of it there.

"DEA obtained a search warrant for the golf bag," Ms Strippoli told the court. "In a hidden compartment it contained, on lab analysis, 588 grams of crack cocaine, 2,621 grams of cocaine, 115 grams of heroin, as well as some marijuana, hashish and ecstasy tablets.

"The vast majority of the drugs were removed but a small sample of approximately seven grams of cocaine was left in the bag and a controlled delivery of the bag was made to Bermuda."

Ms Strippoli said a taxi driver called Reggie collected the pair and took them to a home on Tribe Road in Devonshire. Beach arrived on the Island that night, took possession of the bag and was arrested by local officers.