Anna Sorokin, the fake heiress behind Inventing Anna

Anna Sorokin is a Russian-born woman raised in Germany who, between 2013 and 2017, posed in New York as Anna Delvey, a German heiress with a fortune held in trust. With forged bank statements and fake wire confirmations she tried to borrow $22 million, ran up hotel bills and took a private jet she didn't pay for. In April 2019 a New York jury convicted her of grand larceny, attempted grand larceny and theft of services, and on May 9, 2019 she was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in state prison. Her story inspired the Netflix series Inventing Anna (2022).

In 30 seconds

• Sorokin built a character, Anna Delvey, and used it to seek funding for a private members' club and art foundation she wanted to open in a landmark Manhattan building.
• Her proof of wealth was fabricated: according to the case as reported in the press, she created bank statements in Microsoft Word showing €60 million in Swiss accounts.
• She was convicted on eight counts in 2019 and acquitted on two, including the charge over a $62,000 hotel bill a friend paid in Morocco. The BBC reported she had stolen more than $200,000.
• She is a living person whose immigration case is still open: everything here is attributed to court records and quality press, not to opinion.

Timeline

1. 1991

   Anna Sorokin is born near Moscow. As a teenager she moves with her family to Germany.

2. 2013

   She settles in New York after Fashion Week, where she presents herself as Anna Delvey, a wealthy German heiress.

3. Nov. 2016

   She applies to City National Bank for a $22 million loan with false documents to fund the “Anna Delvey Foundation.”

4. Jan. 2017

   City National grants her a $100,000 overdraft that she promises to repay promptly.

5. Apr.-May 2017

   Bad checks deposited at Citibank, a private jet to Omaha paid with a forged wire confirmation and a $62,000 hotel bill in Marrakesh that a friend pays.

6. 3 Oct. 2017

   She is arrested in California in a sting set up by the NYPD and the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

7. Apr. 2019

   A jury convicts her on eight counts, including grand larceny and theft of services, and acquits her on two.

8. 9 May 2019

   She is sentenced to 4 to 12 years in state prison.

9. Feb. 2021

   Released on parole. Six weeks later, ICE detains her for overstaying her visa.

10. Feb. 2022

    Netflix releases Inventing Anna, based on her story.

11. Oct. 2022

    She is released from immigration detention on a $10,000 bond, under house arrest, while she fights deportation.

Who is Anna Sorokin?

Anna Sorokin was born on January 23, 1991, in Domodedovo, near Moscow, and moved to Germany with her family as a teenager. After a brief stint at a London art school and an internship at the French fashion magazine Purple, she arrived in New York in 2013 for Fashion Week and decided to stay. Around that time she adopted the surname Delvey, which she said came from her mother's maiden name; her parents have said they don't recognize it.

In New York she presented herself as the daughter of a wealthy German family. Acquaintances described her later as someone who always seemed to have money and never seemed to carry it: she paid in cash, lived in hotels and, when the check came, her card often “didn't work.”

How did Anna Delvey con New York?

Her big project was the Anna Delvey Foundation, a private club and arts center she wanted to open in the Church Missions House, a six-floor landmark building in Manhattan. To pay for it, she needed loans, and to get them she needed to look rich on paper.

According to the charges and the press coverage of her trial, in November 2016 she applied to City National Bank for a $22 million loan with false documents. When the bank asked about the source of her Swiss assets, she turned to the investment firm Fortress, which agreed to consider the application if she paid $100,000 in legal expenses. In January 2017 she persuaded City National to give her a temporary $100,000 overdraft, promising to repay it promptly, and used it to pay Fortress. She communicated through a supposed business manager, “Peter Hennecke,” whose email address was fake; prosecutors showed that she had searched Google for how to create untraceable email. A Fortress director grew suspicious of discrepancies in her paperwork, and when he proposed meeting her bankers in Switzerland, she withdrew the application.

The rest of the schemes were smaller and more personal. In April 2017, according to the same accounts, she deposited $160,000 in bad checks at Citibank and withdrew $70,000 before they bounced. In May she booked a private jet to Omaha, to attend the annual meeting of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, by sending the operator a forged wire confirmation for the $35,390 fee. Hotels such as 11 Howard in SoHo and the Beekman let her run up bills for weeks; the Beekman evicted her in June 2017 over an unpaid bill of $11,518.

What happened in Marrakesh?

In May 2017 Sorokin invited her friend Rachel DeLoache Williams, then a photo editor at Vanity Fair, on what she described as an all-expenses-paid trip to Morocco. They stayed in a private riad at La Mamounia, in Marrakesh. When the hotel couldn't charge Sorokin's cards, Williams put the bill of about $62,000 on her own cards, on the promise of being reimbursed. She told her story in Vanity Fair in 2018 and in the book My Friend Anna (2019).

That episode is the most famous part of the story, and it's also where the court record diverges from the legend: the jury acquitted Sorokin of the charge related to the money Williams paid in Marrakesh.

How was she caught and what did the court decide?

On October 3, 2017, Sorokin was arrested in California, outside a rehab facility in Malibu, in a sting planned by an NYPD officer working with the Manhattan District Attorney's office, with Williams's help. A grand jury indicted her for the loan applications, the checks, the unpaid hotel and travel bills and the Morocco trip.

She rejected a plea deal, and her trial began on March 20, 2019, before Judge Diane Kiesel. Her lawyer argued that she always intended to pay her debts. On April 25, 2019, the jury found her guilty on eight counts, including second-degree grand larceny, attempted grand larceny and theft of services, and not guilty on two: the attempted first-degree grand larceny over the original $22 million application, and the larceny charge over Williams's money.

On May 9, 2019, she was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in state prison, fined $24,000 and ordered to pay $199,000 in restitution. According to the BBC, she told the court shortly before sentencing: “I apologise for the mistakes I made.”

Inventing Anna and what came after prison

In 2018 Jessica Pressler published the article in New York magazine that made the case famous, and Netflix paid Sorokin $320,000 for the rights to her story. New York's attorney general sued her under the state's Son of Sam law, which bars criminals from profiting from the publicity of their crimes, and most of that money went to restitution, fines and legal fees. Netflix released Inventing Anna, created by Shonda Rhimes with Julia Garner in the lead role, in February 2022.

Sorokin was released on parole on February 11, 2021. Six weeks later, on March 25, 2021, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained her for overstaying her visa. In October 2022 she was released on a $10,000 bond to house arrest with electronic monitoring while she contests her deportation to Germany. In September 2024 she took part in Dancing with the Stars wearing her ankle monitor; at the time, the BBC reported that the immigration case was still in litigation. We have not found a verified report that it has been resolved.

The MATERIUM lesson: how to recognize the same trap today

Sorokin's case fits two Laws of Deception: “Prestige is the perfect alibi” (Bernie Madoff) and “The wealth they show you is being paid for by the previous victim” (the Tinder Swindler). And it adds one of its own: nobody asks for a receipt from someone who looks like they don't need the money.

The levers were trust and authority: designer clothes, introductions through a lawyer at a major firm, the right hotels and restaurants. And afterward, shame: admitting that someone you considered a friend has fooled you is hard, and every week of silence buys the con artist time.

The same trap works today with fake proof of funds, forged wire receipts and screenshots of bank apps. The signs:

• Proof of wealth that you can't verify independently. A PDF bank statement or a screenshot proves nothing. A bank or a business should verify funds directly with the issuing bank, using contact details it finds itself.
• A wire confirmation instead of the money. If someone sends you a “confirmation” but the funds haven't arrived in your account, the payment doesn't exist yet.
• Intermediaries you can't reach. Business managers who only answer by email, and who disappear or “die” when you ask questions, are a classic sign.
• Putting it on your card “for now.” Never pay large bills on someone else's behalf on the promise of a transfer. If it happens, call your card issuer at once.
• The story that changes. When different friends have heard different versions of where the money comes from, compare notes. That's how Williams realized what was happening.

Where to report it. In the US, report fraud to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and, if it happened online, to the FBI's IC3; if an investment was involved, tell the SEC as well. In the UK, report it to Report Fraud, the service that replaced Action Fraud. You'll find more signs in how to spot a scam and the steps to take in what to do if you get scammed.

This case belongs to our list of the biggest financial frauds in US history and to our gallery of famous con artists. It doesn't have a MATERIUM episode yet; in the meantime, the full series is on the episodes page.