<p>LOS ANGELES — A California man pleaded guilty Tuesday in a scheme to bilk the Afghanistan government out of more than $100 million with a phony bid to build an electric grid, authorities said.</p>
<p>Saed Ismail Amiri, 38, of Granite Bay, entered a plea in Los Angeles federal court to one count of wire fraud, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement. </p>
<p>He could face up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in August.</p>
<p>The scheme involved Amiri’s Afghan company, Assist Consultants Incorporated, federal prosecutors said.</p>
<p>In 2015 and 2016, Amiri and others tried to win a U.S.-funded contract to build five electric power substations in Afghanistan by submitting a false work history and phony supporting documents indicating the firm met requirements for the contract, prosecutors said.</p>
<p>ACI’s bid stated that it had been a subcontractor on substations for a cement factory in Uganda and a textile company in Nigeria. In fact, ACI had never worked on a substation in Africa, and the two companies it mentioned didn’t exist, prosecutors said.</p>
<p>After the national power utility of Afghanistan requested more documents to verify ACI’s work history, Amiri sent more false or altered documents, including photographs, false bank records and a purported letter from a Ugandan government official, authorities said.</p>
<p>Amiri later withdrew the ACI bid after meeting with law enforcement at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, authorities said.</p>
