Who is Anna Sorokin?

Anna Sorokin is a thirty one year old woman born in Russia who committed multiple acts of fraud. When she was sixteen, she moved to Germany and had a very difficult time adjusting to life there. She took an interest in fashion and became fascinated with the idea of becoming famous and well known. She went to a great extent of conning people to achieve this. 

According to NBC New York, “Using the name Anna Delvey, Sorokin maneuvered her way into elite New York social circles by passing herself off as a socialite with a $67 million (61 million euros) fortune overseas, according to prosecutors. She falsely claimed to be the daughter of a diplomat or an oil baron.” She exaggerated her wealth in order to gain popularity and connections. 

She chose to move to New York because it was easier for her to make friends and start the company that she had thought of. This company would be called the “Anna Delvey Foundation.” In order to start this, she needed money. Since she did not actually have money, she needed a loan. She would attempt to do this by conning people into thinking she had a trust fund. She would create fake documents on Microsoft Word to show them proof.

According to The Cut, she was able to create a connection with a good lawyer because some of her friends had put in a good word for her. He helped her achieve a good reputation with banks. Using a fake voice app, she created a fake business manager named Peter Henecke to gain her lawyers’ trust. At first, she applied for a loan at City National Bank but was unsuccessful. She then tried to get one at Fortress. She was very close to getting it, but they became suspicious of her, and she withdrew her application. She still received two hundred thousand dollars in due diligence from Fortress, so she was able to spend that. 

She would also stay in hotels without paying for them. She would talk to the hotel staff and charm them in order to convince them to give her the rooms. She would book them without having a credit card on file, and charge everything to the room. In one circumstance at the 11 Howard Hotel in Manhattan, she owed over thirty thousand dollars. She was able to pay this eventually by depositing seventy thousand dollars worth of fraudulent checks and receiving the money. In addition, she stole from a private jet company by sending them a fake wire transfer.

Her friend Rachel Williams turned her into the police, and she was arrested in 2017 in Los Angeles. Rachel Williams is a journalist for Vanity Fair. Sne first met Anna in 2016 at a restaurant, and she was able to recognize her from Instagram. She wrote her own article about her experiences with Anna Delvey. In the article she discusses how she became friends with Anna overtime, and began spending more time with her and becoming closer. 

Rachel went on a vacation with Anna to Marrakech. They stayed at the most luxurious hotel, and Rachel was under the impression that Anna was paying for this trip. A few days after arriving at the hotel, they asked for a credit card. All of Anna’s cards had been declined. She used the excuse that she hadn’t told the bank that she was traveling. Anna asked Rachel to borrow money, promising to pay her back. She ended up putting Rachel in over $62,000 worth of debt. 

After being arrested, she was brought back to New York and was put on trial. According to Town & Country, “Her case went to trial, and in April 2019, Delvey was convicted of eight charges against her, including second-degree grand larceny, theft of services, and first-degree attempted grand larceny. She was found not guilty of two charges: one of attempted grand larceny in the first degree, and one of larceny in the second degree.” She was sentenced to four to twelve years in prison.

After four years in February 2021, Anna Delvey was released from prison. She was taken to custody by The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement because she had overstayed her visit in the United States. She stayed in ICE custody for a year. Recently on March 14th, she was released from ICE custody to be deported back to Germany. She refused to go, so she remains in ICE custody.