SPRING VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — A woman convicted in an illegal-immigrant smuggling case has been found by San Diego County sheriff's deputies after mysteriously vanishing last month.

Sheriff's Lt. Paul Robbins tells U-T San Diego (http://bit.ly/MMlGKn ) that 41-year-old Rebecca Alford of Spring Valley was found Sunday and arrested on a warrant after a brief chase.

Alford disappeared a week before she was due to be sentenced in federal court for conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants. She was located a short distance from the mobile home park where she lived and was last seen.

Robbins says she was arrested on a warrant for transportation of a controlled substance.

Deputies opened a homicide investigation last month when they found "suspicious circumstances" in her mobile home. Volunteers and cadaver dogs searched the park for nearly six hours.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.