According to federal prosecutors, a former food delivery driver has admitted guilt for conspiring with others to steal over $2.5 million from DoorDash by claiming payments for deliveries that never actually happened.

According to the US Attorney's Office, Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a San Jose federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Devagiri, a 30-year-old from Newport Beach, California, admitted to conspiring with three others to defraud a San Francisco-based delivery company in 2020 and 2021.

The prosecution stated that Devagiri allegedly used customer accounts to place large orders, then accessed DoorDash software using an employee's credentials to manually reassign those orders to delivery driver accounts controlled by him and his accomplices. Subsequently, Devagiri reportedly manipulated these fraudulent driver accounts to mark the orders as delivered and adjusted DoorDash's computer system to pay these accounts for deliveries that never actually occurred.

According to the prosecution, Devagiri repeatedly exploited the DoorDash software by altering order statuses from "delivered" back to "processing." He then reassigned these orders to delivery driver accounts controlled by himself and his accomplices.

In November 2023, a former employee involved in the fraud case pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, admitting to their participation in the scheme.

Devagiri is the third person charged in connection with this competition, and if found guilty, he could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He is scheduled to appear in court on September 16th.