SAN FRANCISCO — A former food delivery driver pleaded guilty to a scheme involving the theft of over $2.5 million from DoorDash. The driver, Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri, worked with accomplices to deceive the company into paying for deliveries that were never actually made, according to federal prosecutors.
On Tuesday, Devagiri entered a guilty plea in a federal court in San Jose. He acknowledged participating in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as confirmed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The 30-year-old from Newport Beach, California, confessed to collaborating with three others during the years 2020 and 2021 to defraud DoorDash, a major delivery service headquartered in San Francisco. The elaborate scheme involved orchestrating fraudulent transactions that resulted in substantial financial losses for the company, as per federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Devagiri used customer accounts to place high-value orders and then used an employee’s credential to gain access to DoorDash software and manually reassign the orders to driver accounts that he and others controlled. Devagiri then caused the fraudulent driver accounts to report that the orders had been delivered when they had not, and manipulated DoorDash’s computer systems to pay the fraudulent driver accounts for the nonexistent deliveries, officials said.
Devagiri would then use DoorDash software to change the orders from “delivered” status to “in process” status and manually reassign the orders to driver accounts he and others controlled, beginning the process again, prosecutors said.
The now-former employee in the scam pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in November 2023 and admitted to being involved in the scheme, prosecutors said.
Devagiri is the third defendant to be convicted of his role in this conspiracy. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. He is scheduled to return to court on Sept. 16.
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