LAS VEGAS (AP) – A substitute teacher suspected of smuggling heroin was arrested by federal agents early Saturday as she walked off a plane at McCarran Airport, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

Jeanette Vidal, 47, of Las Vegas, is accused of making several drug-smuggling trips and attempting to arrange another trip during her spring break vacation in April.

Vidal is one of 22 people accused of being involved in an international heroin ring based in southern Nevada. A criminal complaint unsealed Thursday alleges the operation smuggled more than 200 kilograms of heroin with a street value of more than $14 million into the United States.

Authorities said the operation imported drugs from Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Brazil and Mexico and distributed them in New York and elsewhere.

The drug couriers concealed the heroin in the lining of their clothes or in the soles of their shoes, typically smuggling three to five kilograms per trip, officials said.

Federal agents were waiting for Vidal Saturday when she arrived at about 1:30 a.m. on a flight originating on the Hawaiian island of Maui and stopping in Oakland, Calif., ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley. Vidal was carrying nearly $2,000 in cash and had $10,000 in cash bundled in her luggage, Haley said.

Vidal is expected to make her first appearance in federal court in Las Vegas Monday morning.

Haley said agents are still searching for two suspects in the case, Paola Lujan of Las Vegas and Pierre Mead, 41, who has ties to Las Vegas and Arkansas.

The criminal complaint accuses Javier Alexander Alvarez Monroy, 26, a former police officer in Bogota, Colombia, and Marc Klindt, 29, of being the leaders of the smuggling organization. Both men were arrested in Las Vegas. They are accused of paying a network of couriers to transport heroin into the United States.

During the 10-month investigation authorities said they seized about 28 kilograms of heroin at sites including Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Piarco International Airport in Trinidad.

The majority of the 20 people arrested are from Las Vegas, where authorities arrested 10 people. Arrests also were made in Palm Springs, Calif., Caguas, Puerto Rico, and New York.

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