Five sentenced in scheme to steal $2.5 million from DoorDash

SAN JOSE – All five members of a conspiracy to steal $2.5 million-plus from DoorDash Inc. have been sentenced to a combined total of more than six years in federal prison, authorities said.

The defendants – identified in court documents as Matheus Duarte, 30, a Brazilian national residing in Hayward; Hari Vamsi Anne, 31, of Cypress, Texas; Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri, 31, of Newport Beach; Manaswi Mandadapu, 31, of Irvine; and Tyler Thomas Bottenhorn, 30, of Dixon, Calif. – carried out the scheme from November 2020 to February 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said the defendants created sham customer and driver accounts on the San Francisco-based company’s platform, adding that the sham customer accounts were used to place orders for delivery. The defendants used insider access to DoorDash’s computer systems to assign the orders to the sham driver accounts, which were then paid as if individual orders had been delivered hundreds of times.

No deliveries actually took place, prosecutors said.

The defendants all pleaded guilty and admitted to their involvement in the scheme.

The final sentence was handed down Tuesday. Duarte received 25 months in prison, Anne 22 months, Devagiri 21 months, Mandadapu 12 months and Bottenhorn time served. They were also ordered to serve three years of supervised release.

In addition, Duarte, Anne, Devagiri and Mandadapu must each pay $2,590,195 in restitution, while Bottenhorn must pay $2,127,216.