Exclusive details: Traffic stop leads to trafficking charges
Repeat offender arrested after deputies seize fentanyl, meth, and cash in Mooresboro
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MOORESBORO, NC — A routine traffic stop on June 4, 2025, led to a significant drug bust and the arrest of 29-year-old Raven Leann Moore, a convicted felon with a history of serious offenses, including a fatal car crash in 2013.
Traffic Stop and Arrest
The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office Aggressive Criminal Enforcement (A.C.E.) team was patrolling Earnhardt Drive in Mooresboro when they observed a blue Jeep Renegade crossing the center line, they said in a statement. A license plate check revealed the vehicle was rented through Enterprise Rental Company.
Upon stopping the vehicle, deputies identified the driver as Raven Moore of Nolan Road. Investigators were already familiar with Moore due to prior complaints related to suspected narcotics activity. She denied consent to search the vehicle, prompting deputies to deploy K9 Ranger, who conducted a free-air sniff. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs, providing probable cause for a search.
Inside the vehicle, deputies found:
48.79 grams of powder fentanyl
9.94 grams of fentanyl pills
12 grams of methamphetamine
5 fentanyl patches
Multiple items of drug paraphernalia
$4,474.00 in U.S. currency, suspected drug proceeds
Moore was arrested and transported to the Rutherford County Detention Center, where she is being held under a $1 million secured bond. The investigation is ongoing, and more charges may follow.
Criminal History
According to state records from the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction, Moore has a criminal history that includes nearly 20 convictions for felony breaking and entering, possession with intent to sell or deliver Schedule II controlled substances, and maintaining a place for controlled substances, among others. She has served multiple prison sentences, with her most recent incarceration ending in April 2022.
2013 Fatal Crash
In 2013, Moore was involved in a fatal car crash that resulted in the death of 22-year-old Sebastian Loukaitis of Bostic. The accident occurred on East Main Street in Forest City when her 2000 Dodge Neon ran off the road and struck a tree near the Alexander Street intersection. Loukaitis, who was sitting in the right passenger seat, took the brunt of the impact and was killed. Moore was transported to the Cleveland Regional Medical Center. The case was investigated by the Forest City Police Department.
Law Enforcement Perspective
Law enforcement sources indicate that drug traffickers are increasingly renting vehicles to move narcotics, in part because rented vehicles are less likely to be seized by police during an arrest. “More runners are renting cars, so we don’t take them,” a senior police official told Cops & Congress. “They’re using the system to their advantage.”
This case highlights both the skill of local law enforcement and the policy gaps that traffickers exploit.
Opinion & Analysis: Cops & Congress Commentary
How many chances does one felon get?
Here’s the hard truth: This arrest shouldn’t have come as a surprise, in my view—not to law enforcement, not to the courts, and certainly not to the system that’s allowed repeat offenders like her to keep slipping through the cracks.
This wasn’t her first time behind the wheel during a tragedy. In 2013, Moore was convicted of Death by Vehicle after Loukaitis was killed when a car she was driving slammed into a tree in Forest City. He was a passenger. She was the driver. He didn’t walk away.
Now, she’s behind bars again, this time after a traffic stop turned up enough fentanyl, meth, and drug cash to devastate an entire neighborhood.
What’s baffling—and infuriating to me—is that she was behind the wheel of a rental car in 2025. How does someone with a conviction for killing another person while driving get access to rental vehicles used to allegedly move deadly drugs?
One officer told me, “More runners are renting cars, so we don’t take them.” Let that sink in. Repeat offenders know the game better than the system does.
It’s time for some plain talk. North Carolina’s justice system isn’t just failing to deter—it's enabling. Felons with long records shouldn’t be freely circulating through rental car agencies, let alone communities already struggling with addiction, poverty, and crime.
This is why we must fund law enforcement—not defund them. Why we must support mandatory sentencing—not weaken it. And why we must hold not just criminals accountable, but also the policies and businesses that help enable this revolving door of chaos.
We can mourn victims like Loukaitis. We can praise our deputies for getting fentanyl off the street. But if we don’t fix the system, the next criminal is already out there—driving toward another preventable tragedy.
The Sheriff’s Office did its job. K9 Ranger did his. A convicted felon caught with fentanyl, meth, and drug cash is now behind bars. Now, all eyes turn to the District Attorney Ted Bell and the D.A.’s office.
Will they pursue the full extent of the law? Will they hold a repeat offender, convicted of killing someone behind the wheel, accountable this time? Will judges stop the cycle of insanity and punish people accordingly?
If justice is going to mean anything in Rutherford County, this case is where it starts.
🏛️ All those mentioned are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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