DoorDash driver pleads guilty to $2.5 million delivery fraud

A food-delivery driver has pleaded guilty in federal court to participating in a scheme to steal more than $2.5 million from San Francisco-based delivery company DoorDash, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.

Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri, 30, of Newport Beach, California entered his plea on Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He is the third person to be convicted in connection with the scheme, which occurred between 2020 and 2021.

According to court documents, Devagiri was working as a DoorDash delivery driver at the time. He admitted to working with others to exploit internal software systems and manipulate delivery records.

Using customer accounts, the group placed high-value orders and then used stolen employee credentials to access DoorDash’s system and reassign those orders to driver accounts they controlled. The fraudulent accounts would then falsely mark the orders as delivered, prompting payment from DoorDash for services that were never rendered.

Devagiri would subsequently change the status of the orders back to “in process” and reassign them again, repeating the process in a matter of minutes. The scheme was used hundreds of times, resulting in fraudulent payouts totaling over $2.5 million.

The conspiracy involved multiple participants. Co-defendant Manaswi Mandadapu pleaded guilty on May 6, while Tyler Thomas Bottenhorn entered his guilty plea on November 7, 2023.

Devagiri is scheduled to appear for a status hearing before U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman on September 16. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The investigation was led by the FBI.