A Manteca man has pleaded guilty to his role in a murder-for-hire case that involved hiring a hitman who was actually an FBI informant, the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento said.

Jagninder Singh Boparai, 48, entered the plea last week to a charge of conspiring to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, Acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith announced.

Boparai was accused of conspiring with two others — Ramesh Kumar Birla Jr., 45, of Dublin; and Shaminderjit Singh Sandhu, 51, of Tracy — to kill a person whose identity has not been divulged, federal prosecutors reported.

But before the murder-for-hire plan was fully in place, Boparai paid a supposed hitman, who was really an FBI informant, to beat up another person as proof he was up to the bigger job, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office.

The scheme began in February 2023, when Boparai began meeting with someone he believed was a hitman. Boparai asked the person to assault someone described in court papers only as “Victim 1.”

A month later and with Birla present, Boparai forked over $1,000 to the supposed hitman as a down payment for the assault. They met again the next day and agreed the total cost would be $6,000. Days later, the informant showed Boparai a staged photo of Victim 1 covered in dirt, fake blood and bruises.

Boparai then suggested two other “jobs” for the hitman — robbing a business and making someone “disappear,” court papers show.

That month, he also offered $10,000 as a down payment to the informant to kill a person described in court documents as “Victim 2.” After giving the supposed hitman the victim’s address, Boparai said to make sure the person disappeared without a trace.

On March 24, 2023, Sandhu and Birla met with the hitman in a Manteca parking lot, claiming that Boparai was out of town, and instructed him to kill “Victim 2” and dispose of the remains by stuffing them in a suitcase and taking them to Mexico.

Boparai was spotted witnessing the transaction from a car in the same parking lot, according to court documents.

All three defendants were arrested that day.

Boparai faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for May 8.

The other two defendants remain in federal custody pending their own trials.