A drugs mule who smuggled around $500,000 worth of cocaine into Bermuda concealed in shampoo bottles has been jailed for ten years.

Raymond Symonds told Supreme Court he was hired by a friend who masterminded the operation — but was too scared to shop him to the Police.

Defence lawyer Darrell Clarke told the court: "It's a difficult thing for him to do because people get killed for opening their mouths in this country."

Outlining the case against Symonds, 29, Crown counsel Maria Sofianos said he arrived at the airport at 11.15 a.m on March 9 on an American Airlines flight from New York. When he reached the Customs area, swabs detected cocaine in a duffle bag he was carrying as checked luggage.

A search revealed four plastic bottles labelled TRESemmé shampoo and conditioner. Tests showed that the bottles contained 1,356 grams of liquid cocaine, which explained Ms Sofianos, can be transformed into crack cocaine through a cooking process. The street value of the crack was deemed to be between $423,950 and $529,950 after cooking.

Symonds pleaded guilty at an earlier court appearance to importing cocaine and possessing it with intent to supply.

Senior Crown counsel Paula Tyndale told the court the maximum sentence Symonds could be handed was life in prison plus a mandatory 50 percent increase on the basic sentence — approved by Parliament in 2005 — for the fact that cocaine was the drug involved.

She argued that Symonds was solely to blame for the crime, and recommended he be handed 15 to 18 years in jail.

"He was thinking only of his personal financial gain," she told the court.

Mr. Clarke said Symonds was a courier who did not know exactly what he had on him. He told the court he agreed a payment of $1,000 to bring the drugs into Bermuda, but never received this.

Symonds, of White Hill Lane, Sandys, made an emotional address to Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves.

"I made a huge mistake. I am very regretful for it, but I'm a man who's always been on the right track.

"In the blink of an eye one mistake put me here, but I don't deal with drugs. I ain't a drug dealer, I just made a mistake, a foolish one at that, and I ask the court to have mercy on me," he implored.

He claimed to have received threatening messages while on remand in prison over the possibility of helping Police trace the mastermind of the plot.

"I was afraid for my life... I was told by the Police who are supposed to serve and protect 'no, we can't help you'. I just buckled," he told the judge.

Handing Symonds the ten-year jail term, Mr. Justice Greaves said: "The scourge of drugs, especially hard drugs like cocaine, have created an indelible mark upon Bermudian society.

"This defendant, through his own selfishness for $1,000 — an amount in modern terms that is less than 30 pieces of silver in former times — betrayed his nation and himself to none less than the enemy: A mistake, I feel confident, that he's regretful of and is hopefully not likely to repeat, but he needs to understand that for every benefit there is a burden."