10 people are accused of cheating on a food program for children from low-income families in Minnesota.

Federal prosecutors said Monday ten more people have been charged in connection with a scheme to embezzle more than $250 million from a federal program designed to feed low-income children in Minnesota.

A total of 60 people have been charged with a conspiracy in which authorities say a group of people took advantage of rules that were relaxed during the COVID-19 pandemic and falsely claimed they were feeding children. Minnesota-based U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said in September that the conspiracy was the largest pandemic-related scam to date.

At a press conference on Monday, Luger said six people have pleaded guilty and more information is coming in about who orchestrated the scheme.

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“Our investigation is ongoing and we expect more charges in the future,” Luger said.

At the center of the conspiracy, the indictment alleges, was the Minnesota non-profit organization Feeding Our Future.

Prosecutors said only a portion of the money went to feed the children, while the rest was laundered through shell companies and spent on real estate, luxury cars and travel.

The money came from the USDA under the control of the state governments. In Minnesota, funds were administered by the state Department of Education, with children’s meals historically provided through schools and daycares. The sites that served food were sponsored by authorized community or non-profit groups.

Some standard software requirements have been relaxed during the COVID-19 pandemic; commercial restaurants were allowed to participate, and food was allowed to be distributed outside of educational programs.

Luger said in September that a small group of people came up with a plan to use the relaxed rules and steal tens of millions of dollars by falsely claiming they were feeding children. Others soon joined, Luger said, and the scheme grew.

On Monday, Luger said the defendants allegedly operated fraudulent grocery stores across the state, including Pelican Rapids, Faribo, Burnsville, Minnetonka, Bloomington, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

He drew attention to an indictment against a woman who claimed to distribute 2,560 meals a day to children in Pelican Rapids, a city of just 2,500 people. According to Luger, the woman received about $3.7 million from the scam sites she ran.

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Luger added that in September, federal prosecutors seized about $50 million worth of property fraudulently obtained by the defendants. “Now this figure exceeds $66.6 million and continues to grow,” he said.

Republican lawmakers said Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, both Democrats, squandered an opportunity to use their investigative powers to stop the fraud earlier.

The governor responded that the federal government relaxed its rules when it sent COVID-19 aid to the states — “as they should have” — and that his administration alerted the FBI when it discovered the fraud.

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“Now the investigation is ongoing. I think we’ll get more clarity,” Walz said in October, before he and Allison won re-election the following month.