SPOKANE — When the wave of fentanyl began moving across the United States, federal prosecutors took note and planned to crack down at the first sign of fentanyl in Eastern Washington.
“We knew fentanyl was coming so we were kind of on the look out for it,” said Caitlin Baunsgard, assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. “Because it’s so deadly, you just watch the devastation and the overdose deaths like roll across the country. It’s really quite depressing.”
The drug popped up in the Tri-Cities in 2016 or 2017 shortly after the arrest of a doctor writing opioid prescriptions left a shortage of drugs for users, Baunsgard said.
The first federal fentanyl cases in Eastern Washington involved as little as 100 pills.
As fentanyl began expanding in the Tri-Cities prosecutors like Baunsgard played a game of whack-a-mole indicting traffickers as they could. They heard from the accused that the drug largely was being consumed in the Tri-Cities.