Four individuals have been charged in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme targeting a delivery company in San Francisco, federal officials announced.
The suspects were arrested on Friday across the Bay Area, Southern California, and Texas following a federal grand jury indictment filed on August 7 and unsealed recently, according to a press statement from Ismail Ramsey, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California.
Matheus Duarte, 29, was taken into custody in Mountain House, San Joaquin County, and was released on bond after appearing in court in San Jose. Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri, 30, and Manaswi Mandadapu, 29, were arrested in Newport Beach, Orange County, where they also made initial court appearances and were released on bond. Hari Vamsi Anne, 30, was apprehended in Cypress, Texas, and is being held pending further proceedings after his court appearance in Houston.
All four face a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. According to the indictment, the defendants conspired to defraud the victim company by causing it to pay for deliveries that never occurred between November 2020 and February 2021.
The unidentified company offers delivery services, allowing customers to place orders through its platform. The indictment alleges that the defendants created fraudulent customer and driver accounts on the platform, using them to order items for delivery. They allegedly exploited insider access to the company’s systems to assign these orders to the fake driver accounts, manipulating the system to authorize payments for hundreds of non-existent deliveries.
The scheme reportedly resulted in fraudulent payments exceeding $2.5 million.
Additionally, it was alleged that the defendants accessed the company’s computer systems using the credentials of a former employee, Tyler Thomas Bottenhorn, a resident of Solano County. While Bottenhorn was not charged in the recent indictment, he faces separate charges for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a case filed in 2022. He pleaded guilty in November 2023 for his role in the fraudulent activities against the delivery company.
If convicted, Duarte, Devagiri, Mandadapu, and Anne each face a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the wire fraud charge, with sentences being determined according to federal guidelines.