Federal prosecutors allege that a former food delivery driver, colluding with accomplices, orchestrated a scheme to defraud DoorDash of over $2.5 million by claiming reimbursement for phantom deliveries, thereby engaging in grand larceny.

The United States Attorney's Office announced that Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri pleaded guilty on Tuesday in San Jose federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Federal prosecutors allege that Devagiri, a 30-year-old resident of Newport Beach, California, conspired with three accomplices to defraud a San Francisco-based delivery company in both 2020 and 2021, purportedly engaging in a scheme of considerable complexity and sophistication.

According to the public prosecutor, Devagiri allegedly orchestrated a scheme involving the placement of inflated orders through client accounts, subsequently leveraging employee credentials to infiltrate DoorDash's proprietary software and manually reassign these orders to driver accounts controlled by himself and his confederates; furthermore, authorities contend that he manipulated DoorDash's computational infrastructure by inducing fictitious driver accounts to fraudulently report "delivery completion" for non-existent deliveries, thereby compelling the system to disburse payments for phantom services rendered.

Subsequently, according to the prosecution, Devagiri exploited DoorDash's software by manipulating order statuses—reverting them from "delivered" to "in progress"—and then manually reassigning these orders to driver accounts controlled by himself and his accomplices, thereby perpetuating the fraudulent scheme.

Prosecutors have divulged that the former employee implicated in this fraud case pleaded guilty in November 2023 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conceding his active participation in the scheme's orchestration.

Devagiri, the third defendant convicted for his instrumental role in this conspiracy, faces a potential sentence of up to twenty years' imprisonment and a $250,000 fine; his next court appearance is scheduled for September 16th.