A US visitor has been fined $1,600 after getting caught at the Airport with cannabis stuffed down his boxer shorts.

Christopher Thomas Marino, 36, of Teaneck, New Jersey, committed the offence on December 31.

He pleaded guilty to cannabis importation at Magistrates' Court yesterday.

Senior Crown counsel Paula Tyndale told the court Marino arrived at Bermuda's LF Wade International Airport on an American Airlines flight from New York's JFK airport.

A sniffer dog alerted Customs officers to his luggage — but Marino told them he had not been in contact with any narcotics.

After he was detained and searched, said Ms Tyndale: "One officer seized a blue piece of wrapping paper from the front of his boxer shorts containing four hand rolled cigarettes containing plant material."

Tests revealed this to be 1.63 grams of cannabis with a street value of $75.

Marino, an American citizen, has no previous convictions in Bermuda, the court was told.

He did not address the court prior to being handed the fine by Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo.