He made arrangements to ship packages containing heroin to two separate addresses in Fayetteville, North Carolina, each belonging to elderly black women whose names were obtained from personnel records.

During one shipment, the pickup was late; one of the women contacted the postal service while the other called the police to report a bomb threat.

The police identified Atkinson from a palm print on one of the heroin bags, and he was arrested on January 19, 1975, in his home in Goldsboro while on leave.

Frank Lucas, one of Atkinson's partners in the US, stated that this was how the narcotic was smuggled out of Thailand:[3] Ike flew a country-boy North Carolina carpenter over to Bangkok.

[5] He was charged following a 15-month investigation where an undercover agent, posing as a corrupt German diplomat, obtained five pounds of heroin from buyers in Thailand by claiming that he was associated with Atkinson.

Six other inmates were also charged, as was corrections officer Samuel Arrante, 36, for smuggling incriminating letters used to communicate information about potential deals.