GRANTS PASS - A couple who bought a luxury home on the Oregon Coast with proceeds from selling tourist visas to illegal immigrants from India and Vietnam pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges.

As part of a plea bargain, Acey Johnson, 33, and his wife, Long Lee, 52, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., to charges related to visa fraud and alien smuggling, the U.S. State Department said.

Terms of the deal call for them to assist in the continuing investigation, serve at least five years in prison and forfeit $358,000 and two homes in Oregon and Colorado bought with the visa proceeds, authorities said. Sentencing is scheduled for July 16 in Sacramento.

A total of 11 people have been charged in the scheme. Five others have pleaded guilty, three are awaiting trial, and one remains a fugitive, authorities said.

Investigators learned of the scheme in June 2002 from an Indian immigrant facing deportation after being convicted of bribery. He told investigators two fellow Indian immigrants who owned cigarette stores in Sacramento were selling visas for $25,000 apiece through the U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka.

Using e-mails coded in golf terms, visa brokers would contact Johnson, a former Marine embassy guard who processed visa applications at embassies in Fiji and Sri Lanka, state department officials said on condition of anonymity.

After focusing on Johnson, investigators found a spike in visas issued to Vietnamese at the Sri Lanka embassy and turned their attention to Lee, who was a Vietnamese immigrant who became a U.S. citizen and worked her way up to chief administrative officer of the embassy.

A check of visa records showed while Johnson was in Fiji and Sri Lanka, there had been a spike in visa approvals for people from India.

A look at the couple's bank accounts found frequent deposits of thousands of dollars.

Investigators found Vietnamese waiting for visas living at Johnson and Lee's home in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

When Johnson left Sri Lanka in February 2003, investigators tailed him from San Francisco to the couple's $585,000 house in the tiny fishing town of Port Orford, Ore., and kept watch over him. Johnson was arrested there April 29, 2003, while living with three adopted children, one of them suffering from cerebral palsy, and another couple.

Lee was arrested the next day at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., after agreeing to return to the United States from Sri Lanka.

Just last month, $13,000 in cash and a bank receipt in Johnson's name turned up in a sofa that Johnson and Lee had in their home in Sri Lanka. An embassy couple who took over possession of the sofa found it when they were wiping up orange juice spilled by their 5-year-old.