Undercover Drug Operation Turns Into a Wild New Year's Eve Police Chase

The Deal Never Even Got Started

New Year's Eve was supposed to end with an arrest.

Instead, it began with a pickup truck racing away from police.

On December 31, 2024, undercover officers with the Moore Police Department in Oklahoma were preparing for what appeared to be a controlled drug buy. Investigators had arranged to purchase fentanyl powder from a woman they identified as 35-year-old Kayla Cervantes.

The meeting point was a Dollar General parking lot near Eastern Avenue.

Police were already familiar with Cervantes. Authorities said she had multiple outstanding warrants, including warrants connected to drugs, burglary and eluding law enforcement.

The plan was for undercover officers to meet her.

But Cervantes apparently realized something was wrong before the transaction could take place.

According to Moore Police spokesperson Clint Byley, she noticed a police vehicle in the area and did not pull into the agreed location.

Instead, she drove away.

Within moments, the undercover operation had transformed into something far more dangerous: a high-speed pursuit through Moore and southwest Oklahoma City.

The dashcam footage later released by Moore Police shows why officers considered the situation so serious.

The pickup blasts through intersections.

It moves into oncoming traffic.

It cuts through parking lots.

It uses the interstate shoulder to get around ordinary motorists.

Again and again, the driver finds another escape route.

Eventually, officers decide that allowing the chase to continue creates too much danger.

Near Interstate 240 and May Avenue, a Moore officer moves alongside the pickup.

Seconds later, the truck is airborne.

When it finally comes to rest, Cervantes' attempt to escape is over.

And what officers allegedly discover inside the wrecked pickup provides the missing explanation for why police had been waiting for her in the first place.

Police Were Waiting for a Suspected Fentanyl Dealer

The public dashcam footage begins like a pursuit video.

The investigation behind it began earlier.

Moore Police told local reporters that undercover agents had arranged a controlled drug transaction with Cervantes.

They were attempting to buy fentanyl powder from her.

That detail changes the entire context of what follows.

This wasn't an officer randomly encountering a pickup with a minor traffic violation.

Police were already conducting an investigation.

Cervantes also allegedly had several outstanding warrants from Oklahoma, McClain and Cleveland counties involving drugs, burglary and previous attempts to elude police.

Undercover officers prepared for the meeting at the Dollar General parking lot.

Then Cervantes arrived in the area.

Something apparently caught her attention.

Police said she noticed a patrol vehicle before the undercover officers could complete the planned face-to-face meeting.

She changed course.

Officers attempted to stop her.

She did not stop.

The pursuit began near Northeast 27th Street and Eastern Avenue.

From there, the situation escalated almost immediately.

Ordinary intersections become the first danger

Dashcam footage shows the pickup moving rapidly through traffic.

Cervantes allegedly began running red lights and driving erratically as officers followed.

This is where a pursuit becomes dangerous for people who have absolutely nothing to do with the police investigation.

Drivers approaching an intersection normally rely on traffic signals.

A green light tells them that crossing traffic should be stopped.

During a police pursuit, that expectation can suddenly become unreliable.

A fleeing driver may ignore the red light.

A motorist with the right of way may enter the intersection without realizing a pickup is approaching at high speed.

The person driving through the green light has done nothing wrong.

Yet that person can suddenly become part of a pursuit.

In the footage, Cervantes keeps moving.

Police stay behind her.

Soon, the chase reaches Interstate 240.

And the available escape routes multiply.

The Pickup Uses Almost Every Piece of Road Available

Once the pursuit reaches I-240, Cervantes begins using the highway aggressively.

Dashcam footage shows her weaving between vehicles.

She moves onto the shoulder.

She passes traffic.

At different points, the pickup appears to use whatever open pavement is available rather than remaining within ordinary lanes.

KOCO reported that Cervantes eventually exited the interstate, drove in the wrong direction and cut through parking lots before crossing a grassy median and getting back onto I-240.

That sequence makes the pursuit particularly difficult.

Police cannot simply predict that the fleeing driver will follow the roadway.

A normal motorist follows lanes.

A fleeing driver can suddenly treat a parking lot, median or shoulder as another route.

Every unconventional move creates another decision for the pursuing officers.

Do they follow directly?

Do they back off?

Can another unit intercept ahead?

Is there enough room for a tactical intervention?

Meanwhile, ordinary traffic continues moving around them.

The shoulder becomes another passing lane

Back on I-240, Cervantes continues using the shoulder to pass traffic.

This is one of the most dangerous portions of the chase.

Highway shoulders are not designed to function as high-speed travel lanes.

A disabled vehicle could be stopped there.

A motorist could be changing a tire.

Emergency workers could be present.

Debris may be lying where normal traffic rarely travels.

And drivers in the adjacent lane may not expect a vehicle to appear beside them at pursuit speed.

Yet the pickup continues.

Moore Police dashcam footage shows several close interactions with other vehicles as Cervantes tries to maintain her escape.

The image above is from KOCO's actual reporting on this pursuit, showing the damaged white pickup after the chase ended on I-240. It is a real news image from this incident, not AI-generated imagery.

For the officers behind Cervantes, the situation has become a calculation.

Every additional minute creates another opportunity for a collision.

Every intersection creates another risk.

Every maneuver around civilian traffic exposes another uninvolved driver.

Eventually, officers decide to intervene.

The TVI attempt

Near May Avenue in southwest Oklahoma City, a Moore Police officer closes the distance.

The maneuver used by the department is described as a TVI, Tactical Vehicle Intervention, closely related to what many departments call a PIT maneuver.

The principle is straightforward.

A pursuing police vehicle makes controlled contact with the rear portion of the fleeing vehicle in an effort to rotate it and terminate the pursuit.

In practice, however, vehicle dynamics can make the result unpredictable.

Speed matters.

Road surface matters.

The type of vehicle matters.

Nearby traffic matters.

Barriers matter.

Here, there is a concrete divider nearby.

The officer moves into position.

Contact is made.

The pickup begins rotating.

Then everything happens quickly.

According to KOCO, Cervantes' truck struck a concrete barrier and launched into the air before eventually coming to rest on the highway.

The video makes the ending look violent because it is.

The pickup rotates and rolls.

Debris scatters.

For a moment, officers cannot know what condition the driver is in.

Then the pursuit vehicles stop.

Officers get out.

The chase that had crossed intersections, parking lots, medians and interstate lanes is finally stationary.

Nobody else was injured

Considering what the footage shows, one detail stands out.

No officers or civilians were injured during the pursuit.

Cervantes herself was taken to an area hospital for evaluation following the crash. After being medically cleared, she was transported to the Cleveland County Detention Center.

That outcome could easily have been different.

The pickup had traveled through red lights.

It had entered opposing traffic.

It had crossed parking lots.

It had moved across grass and medians.

It had driven along an interstate shoulder while civilian traffic remained nearby.

The final intervention happened on an active highway.

Yet the chase ended without another motorist being hospitalized.

For officers, however, the investigation was not finished.

They still had the pickup.

And according to police, its contents connected the dramatic chase directly back to the undercover operation that started everything.

What police say they found inside

Officers searched the vehicle following Cervantes' arrest.

According to Moore Police and local reporting, they found fentanyl pills, methamphetamine, heroin and drug paraphernalia.

The PoliceActivity upload, which reproduces the Moore Police account, identifies the fentanyl as M30 pills and states that police believed the drugs were intended for distribution.

That discovery brings the story full circle.

Police had arranged a suspected fentanyl purchase.

Cervantes allegedly noticed law enforcement.

She fled.

After an approximately eight-minute pursuit, officers stopped her.

Then they allegedly found multiple types of controlled substances in the same pickup.

The pursuit therefore wasn't an isolated event.

It was the final and most visible phase of an investigation already underway before the dashcam started producing dramatic footage.

Why the first thirty seconds matter

Police pursuit videos are often edited around their ending.

The crash becomes the thumbnail.

The TVI becomes the headline.

The rollover becomes the moment everyone replays.

But focusing exclusively on that moment removes much of the story.

The important sequence actually begins before the pursuit.

Undercover investigators believed Cervantes was going to sell fentanyl.

They arranged a meeting.

Police said she spotted law enforcement.

She fled.

That decision placed dozens of unrelated motorists inside a moving police operation.

From there, each attempt to escape increased the stakes.

Running a red light created one risk.

Entering opposing traffic created another.

Using parking lots added pedestrians and parked vehicles.

Driving on the interstate shoulder brought the pickup close to motorists who may never have seen it coming.

By the time police performed the TVI, officers were no longer deciding whether the pursuit was dangerous.

The footage had already answered that question.

They were deciding how to end it.

 New Year's Eve Ends in a Detention Cell

The timing gives the incident an unusual backdrop.

It happened on December 31, 2024.

While people across Oklahoma were preparing for New Year's Eve celebrations, Moore Police were pursuing a wanted woman through city streets and onto I-240.

The chase lasted only minutes.

Yet within those minutes, Cervantes allegedly moved through nearly every environment that makes a pursuit difficult.

City intersections.

Opposing traffic.

Commercial parking lots.

Grass medians.

Highway lanes.

The interstate shoulder.

Then came the final maneuver near May Avenue.

The pickup spun.

It hit the barrier.

It became airborne and rolled.

When officers reached the vehicle, the chase was over.

Cervantes was taken into custody without further incident and transported to a hospital before being booked into jail.

Police said she already had outstanding warrants across several Oklahoma counties. Following the pursuit, she also faced allegations arising from the chase and the drugs allegedly discovered in her vehicle. Contemporary reporting noted that she was awaiting formal charges immediately afterward.

The Moore Police footage itself was subsequently released publicly.

The exact YouTube video you supplied, 3WiO-w19N3Q, was published by PoliceActivity on January 3, 2025. A preserved copy on Wikimedia Commons documents that it was imported directly from that YouTube URL and attributes the underlying footage to Moore Police.

That gives us an unusually strong chain of verification for this case.

The footage matches the police account.

The locations match.

The local news reporting matches.

The suspect matches.

And the ending shown by the dashcam matches the aftermath photographed by local news.

Most importantly, the case demonstrates how quickly an operation designed to avoid public danger can create exactly that danger once a suspect decides to flee.

Undercover officers had arranged a controlled meeting.

Instead of completing that meeting, Cervantes allegedly recognized police and drove away.

From that point forward, the investigation was no longer confined to officers and a suspect.

Everyone sharing the road became part of the risk.

The truck could have struck someone at an intersection.

It could have hit a vehicle while moving against traffic.

Someone could have been walking through one of the parking lots.

A disabled driver could have been standing on the interstate shoulder.

None of those worst-case outcomes occurred.

The final image instead shows a destroyed pickup surrounded by officers.

That photograph is perhaps the simplest summary of the entire pursuit.

A vehicle that had spent eight minutes finding one escape route after another finally had nowhere left to go.

The Full Dashcam Shows Why Officers Decided to End It

A short clip of the final TVI can make this incident look like one dramatic police maneuver.

The complete footage tells a different story.

Before officers made contact with the pickup near I-240 and May Avenue, they had watched Cervantes allegedly run traffic lights, enter oncoming lanes, cut through parking lots, cross a grassy median, weave around interstate traffic and use the shoulder to continue fleeing. Local reporting confirms that the pursuit began during an undercover operation intended to buy fentanyl from her.

The rollover was therefore not the beginning of the story.

It was the moment police finally stopped a chase that had already created repeated opportunities for a serious collision.

The fact that no civilian or officer was injured is one of the most remarkable outcomes of the entire incident.

And after the pickup stopped moving, investigators still had one final piece of the story to uncover: the fentanyl pills, methamphetamine, heroin and paraphernalia police said they found inside