Former Delivery Driver Scams $2.5 Million From DoorDash

<p><strong>SAN JOSE<&sol;strong> – Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to steal more than &dollar;2&period;5 million from DoorDash&comma; Inc&period;&comma; a San Francisco-based delivery company&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Devagiri&comma; 30&comma; of Newport Beach&comma; CA and three other defendants were <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;justice&period;gov&sol;usao-ndca&sol;pr&sol;four-defendants-charged-multi-million-dollar-fraud-targeting-san-francisco-delivery">indicted<&sol;a> by a federal grand jury in August 2024&period;  Devagiri was charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in violation of 18 U&period;S&period;C&period; § 1349&period;  He pleaded guilty to that count today&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In pleading guilty&comma; Devagiri admitted to working with others in 2020 and 2021 to cause DoorDash to pay for deliveries that never occurred&period;  At the time&comma; Devagiri was a delivery driver for DoorDash orders&period;  Under the scheme&comma; Devagiri used customer accounts to place high value orders and then&comma; using an employee’s credentials to gain access to DoorDash software&comma; manually reassigned DoorDash orders to driver accounts that he and others controlled&period;  Devagiri then caused the fraudulent driver accounts to report that the orders had been delivered&comma; when they had not&comma; and manipulated DoorDash’s computer systems to prompt DoorDash to pay the fraudulent driver accounts for the non-existent deliveries&period;  Devagiri would then use DoorDash software to change the orders from &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;delivered” status to &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;in process” status and manually reassign the orders to driver accounts he and others controlled&comma; beginning the process again&period;  This procedure usually took less than five minutes&comma; and was repeated hundreds of times for many of the orders&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The scheme resulted in fraudulent payments exceeding &dollar;2&period;5 million&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Acting United States Attorney Patrick D&period; Robbins and Federal Bureau of Investigation &lpar;FBI&rpar; Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani made the announcement&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Devagiri is the third defendant to be convicted for his role in this conspiracy&period;  Co-defendant Manaswi Mandadapu pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud on May 6&comma; 2025&period;  Tyler Thomas Bottenhorn&comma; who was separately charged&comma; pleaded guilty on Nov&period; 7&comma; 2023&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Devagiri is next scheduled to appear before U&period;S&period; District Judge Beth Labson Freeman for a status hearing on Sept&period; 16&comma; 2025&period;  He faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of &dollar;250&comma;000&period;  Any sentence will be imposed by the court only after consideration of the U&period;S&period; Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence&comma; 18 U&period;S&period;C&period; § 3553&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Assistant U&period;S&period; Attorney Michael G&period; Pitman is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Sahib Kaur&period;  The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;