Prosecutors accuse Salem man of being part of major drug smuggling operation

Federal agents in Oregon cracked open the plastic doctor’s kit meant for a child, shipped from California.

They pulled out from the doctor’s bag a package of a little more than one pound of fentanyl. The package had been slathered with axle grease, a drug trafficker’s trick to avoid detection.

But that discovery in December 2024 put a Eugene-based task force on the trail of what prosecutors now say was a multi-state drug organization with…