A man on Monday pleaded guilty in Minnesota federal court to defrauding the U.S. government, admitting that only a fraction of the federal funds he was issued were spent on food for children he claimed to serve.

Abdirashid Bixi Dool, 37, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis to one count of wire fraud for his role in the fraud scheme run out of nonprofits Bilaal Mosque Inc., in Pelican Rapids, and Multicultural Resource Center Inc., in Moorhead.

Both meal sites were enrolled under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the $300 million fraud scheme, considered the largest pandemic-era fraud plot in the U.S.

Attorneys for Dool did not immediately respond to the Minnesota Star Tribune’s request for comment.

According to his plea, Dool, along with two unnamed co-conspirators, collected $1.1 million in federal child nutrition funds through false or inflated claims between March 2021 through February 2022. Dool claimed to serve more than 40,000 meals to children per week at the sites and signed off on the counts for reimbursement. Federal prosecutors allege that Dool claimed to serve 6,000 meals per day at the Bilaal site, a figure that amounts to more than double the number of people living in Pelican Rapids, which last reported a population of 2,586.

More than once, Dool is alleged to have created a fraudulent invoice purporting that a vendor purchased more food than it actually did after a Feeding Our Future employee told him the quantities and prices necessary to submit his false claim.

Dool and his conspirators tried to support their inflated billings by taking the names of people who received food at the meal sites and duplicating them, changing the ages and spelling, to generate fake rosters, according to his plea.

Federal prosecutors said Dool spent his cut of the fraudulent proceeds to travel and buy real estate in Minnesota.