According to federal prosecutors, a former food delivery driver has pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to defraud DoorDash of over $2.5 million by claiming payments for deliveries that never occurred.

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, 30, from Newport Beach, California, has confessed to conspiring with three individuals to defraud a San Francisco-based delivery company in both 2020 and 2021.

Prosecutors allege that Devagiri exploited customer accounts to place substantial orders, subsequently using an employee's credentials to access DoorDash's software and manually reassign these orders to delivery driver accounts controlled by himself and his accomplices. Following this, Devagiri purportedly manipulated these fraudulent driver accounts to falsely report order completion, further manipulating DoorDash's computer systems to disburse payments for these fictitious deliveries.

According to the prosecution, Devagiri purportedly exploited the DoorDash software by manipulating order statuses from "delivered" back to "processing," subsequently reassigning these orders manually to delivery driver accounts controlled by himself and his accomplices, thereby perpetuating the scheme.

In November 2023, a former employee implicated in the fraud case pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, admitting to involvement in the scheme.

Devagiri is the third defendant indicted for his alleged involvement in the scheme and potentially faces a maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment and a $250,000 fine; he is scheduled to appear in court on September 16th.