Notorious heroin trafficker dies
By Staff Reports
Published in News on November 15, 2014 10:38 PM
Submitted photo
Leslie "Ike" Atkinson
A former soldier and convicted drug trafficker who was believed to have played a significant role in smuggling heroin to the United States during the Vietnam War died Tuesday.
Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, 88, was convicted of orchestrating the transport of the drug from Southeast Asia to the U.S. via military installations, including Fort Bragg -- and, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, was the main supplier to Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas.
Atkinson was arrested in January 1975 at his Goldsboro home and, after being convicted later that year on drug charges, served more than 30 years in prison.
He died Tuesday at Parham Doctors' Hospital in Henrico, Va., and is scheduled to be buried in Goldsboro next week.
At 49, Atkinson was arrested on a charge of importing heroin into the United States from Thailand. At that time, lawmen told the News-Argus that a large quantity of the drug was intercepted in Goldsboro in packages shipped through the mail.
That same week, city, county, state and federal officers announced the seizure of nearly four pounds of pure heroin with a street value of $3.25 million -- a bust that federal officials characterized as "probably the biggest seizure of heroin on the East Coast ... between Philadelphia and Florida."