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DENVER, Colorado (CNN) -- Federal agents have arrested 27 people in Colorado in connection with an Ecstasy distribution ring that authorities charge is responsible for a teen-ager's death and Air Force Academy expulsions.

Asa Hutchinson, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency, is expected to announce Thursday the culmination of a yearlong investigation dubbed Operation Green Clover, a reference to the green Ecstasy pills stamped with a clover leaf.

Among those arrested was John Sposit of Lakewood, Colorado, whom DEA officials identify as the ringleader. Officials said 37 people have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Denver. Three of them, including Sposit, have been charged with operating a continuing criminal enterprise.

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DEA officials said a 16-year-old Colorado girl, Brittany Chambers, died after being given one of the pills by friends at her birthday party in February.

Authorities also have tied Sposit to Ecstasy use at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, which led to one arrest and 12 expulsions. Another 17 military discharges or courts-martial occurred at Peterson Air Force Base and Fort Carson, Colorado, as a result of drug use related to the ring, DEA officials said.

The arrests in Colorado were the latest made by federal authorities in connection with Ecstasy distribution. On Tuesday, nine people were arrested in Miami and charged with taking part in a ring that smuggled 250,000 tablets of Ecstasy into the country from Amsterdam in travelers' girdles.

The couriers were paid $1 per pill to smuggle 10,000 pills at a time between January 1999 and last October, according to a report by The Associated Press.

The operation was discovered after two couriers were caught with the drug.

The sting was one of the largest Ecstasy drug busts in the United States, said John Clark, special agent-in-charge for the U.S. Customs Service.

All nine defendants were charged with conspiracy to import and possess Ecstasy with the intent to distribute. The smuggled drugs were worth $5 million to $7.5 million, authorities said.