Federal prosecutors stated that a former food delivery driver admitted guilt to charges of conspiring with accomplices to defraud DoorDash of over $2.5 million by inducing the company to reimburse fabricated deliveries.

Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri entered a guilty plea on Tuesday in San Jose federal court to one count of conspiracy to perpetrate wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Devagiri, 30, residing in Newport Beach, California, has confessed to conspiring with three accomplices throughout 2020 and 2021 to defraud a San Francisco-based delivery firm, according to federal prosecutors.

Prosecutors alleged that Devagiri exploited customer accounts to initiate substantial orders. Subsequently, he illicitly employed an employee's credentials to infiltrate DoorDash's software, enabling him to reroute these orders to driver accounts under his and his accomplices' control. Officials stated that Devagiri then orchestrated a scheme whereby these fraudulent accounts falsely reported successful deliveries, thereby manipulating DoorDash's systems into disbursing payments for phantom deliveries.

Prosecutors stated that Devagiri allegedly exploited the DoorDash system by altering order statuses from "delivered" back to "in process," then manually reassigning them to driver accounts under his and his associates' control, thereby perpetuating the fraudulent scheme.

The disgraced former employee implicated in the scam pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in November 2023, confessing to his participation in the illicit scheme, according to prosecutors.

Devagiri, the third defendant found culpable in this conspiracy, now faces a potential sentence of up to 20 years imprisonment, coupled with a $250,000 fine, and is due back in court on September 16th.