DoorDash driver admits to stealing $2.5M in delivery scam
A delivery worker carries a DoorDash bag in New York, US, on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. In a matter of five hours, the US delivery firm DoorDash Inc. announced two multibillion-dollar acquisitions that stand to turn what is already the largest food-delive
SAN JOSE, Calif. - A DoorDash delivery driver admitted in federal court Tuesday to stealing more than $2.5 million from the San Francisco-based food delivery company.
2.5M delivery scheme
What we know:
Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri, 30, of Newport Beach, was indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2024 along with three other defendants on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
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Prosecutors said Devagiri admitted he conspired with others in 2020 and 2021 to cause DoorDash to pay for deliveries that never happened.
The process
Dig deeper:
As part of the scheme, the defendants used customer accounts to place high-priced orders. Devagiri then used employee credentials to access DoorDash’s internal software and manually reassign the orders to driver accounts controlled by him and his co-conspirators.
The fraudulent driver accounts falsely reported that the orders had been delivered, prompting the company to issue payments. Devagiri then manipulated the system to change the order status from "delivered" back to "in process," reassigning them again to repeat the process.
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The cycle, which typically took less than five minutes, was repeated hundreds of times, ultimately resulting in more than $2.5 million in fraudulent payments.
Devagiri is the third defendant to be convicted in the case. His co-defendants, Manaswi Mandadapu and Tyler Thomas Bottenhorn, already pleaded guilty.
Devagiri faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The Source: Department of Justice