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

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

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

Devagiri allegedly exploited customer accounts to initiate substantial orders, subsequently utilizing an employee's credentials to infiltrate DoorDash's internal systems; he then purportedly reassigned these orders to driver accounts under his and his associates' control, according to prosecutors. Officials further contend that Devagiri fraudulently marked these orders as delivered, despite their non-delivery, and manipulated DoorDash's digital infrastructure to disburse payments to these bogus driver accounts for services never rendered.

Devagiri allegedly exploited the DoorDash system, manipulating order statuses from "delivered" back to "in process" and reassigning them to accounts controlled by him and his accomplices, thereby perpetuating the fraudulent scheme, according to prosecutors.

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

Devagiri, the third defendant found culpable in this conspiracy, potentially faces a sentence of up to twenty years' imprisonment alongside a $250,000 fine and is due back in court on September 16th.