A NIGERIAN drug runner who admitted trying to smuggle 1.7 kilograms of heroin into Hong Kong in his suitcase using a fake American passport was yesterday jailed for 15 years.

Mack Forson, 38, a technician, was arrested at Kai Tak airport on December 14 last year, with the drugs hidden in his luggage, Deputy Judge Cheung in the High Court heard.

But defence counsel Wong Chi-kwong said Forson had been forced to carry the heroin by a Chinese friend who lured him to Europe with the promise of a lucrative job.

When he arrived in Yugoslavia, the man stole his passport, return ticket and money and refused to return them unless he agreed to smuggle drugs from Pakistan to Nigeria.