Inventing Anna: The True Story Of The Incredible Scam That Inspired The Netflix Miniseries

When a package arrived for her, real fights broke out in the hotel staff: everyone wanted to go up to their room to bring him the mail or whatever he ordered, because Anna rewarded everyone with brand new $100 bills. So the concierge of the 11 Howard Hotel in New York Neffatari Davis tells Jessica Pressler about the attitude and climate surrounding Anna Delvey in 2017, when her scam had not yet been discovered.

Incredible as it may seem, the Netflix series curated by Shonda Rhimes Inventing Anna is based on real events. The main source of the 10-episode miniseries is a very long and very detailed news report by Jessica Pressler and titled How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People, written by Jessica Pressler for New York Magazine. in 2018. In the series we see the same journalist meeting Anna in prison and trying to be told about the incredible scam set up by a young woman able – as a complete stranger – to enter the richest and most influential circles of the Big Apple, living at their expense for months, without anyone suspecting anything. But who is Anna really and how did she scam the New York elite? Here is the true judicial and journalistic story that inspired the series.

Who Really is Anna Delvey

Anna Delvey’s real name is Anna Sorokin, the young she was born in Russia in 1991 and she followed her family to Germany in 2007, where she attended public school. The family, made up of parents and younger brother, still lives in Europe and does not want to be associated with the girl, fearing Anna’s debts will be taken over.

Anna’s schoolmates describe her as silent and with a very fluctuating German . While her father was a truck driver, Anna finished school in Eschweiler, just outside Berlin. After enrolling in a London college and leaving it after a few months, Anna returned to Berlin, with the dream of becoming part of the fashion world as a PR. Anna then tries to get an internship at Purple magazine and on this occasion she coined her pseudonym Delvey. From here on she begins a long period of silence, from which she will re-emerge a few years later as the center of New York social life.

The Details Of The Anna Delvey Scam

Pressler’s journalistic investigation clearly shows the fact that the unpaid bills and debts that led Anna Sorokin to prison are only part of the trail of deceptions that the woman has left behind. According to multiple sources, Anna has scammed virtually everyone in New York’s wealthiest circle, but many remain silent out of shame at being duped and afraid Anna Delvey will give the press juicy details about how she cheated them.

The question that many have asked themselves is how a young woman who is not particularly beautiful or talented, lacking in charm and with a far from accommodating character has managed to dupe the rich of the Big Apple. Anna has never pleaded guilty to anything nor has she shown any signs of repentance. Indeed, she is very angry that they have not established a sum to be repaid to obtain the conditional: according to her it is for fear that she can obtain it, maybe who knows, by resorting to some well-hidden trust in which part of her illicit earnings are deposited. One of the most significant phrases of her reported by the reportage that tells her about her reads:

There is an unlimited amount of capital, money in the world, you know? But there are a limited number of people who are talented.

Anna’s version – very irritated by the fact that she was portrayed as an aspiring socialite – is that what had to be done was to open a place with a breathtaking view of New York, where people could dine, chat and enjoy a designer environment. avant-garde. In fact, Anna’s scam was discovered thanks to the discoveries she had to accumulate to try to get her hands on the loans needed to buy the 45 thousand square meter space on the sixth floor of the Church Missions House, stealing it from the competition of the Swedish Fotografiska museum.

Before it all fell apart, Anna had come close to getting a $ 50 million loan, with a complex array of fake collateral and bank swaps, involving a fictional curator of her finances, wealthy Silicon Valley officials and even the lawyer Joel Cohen, known for having provided legal advice to Jordan Belfort, the “wolf of Wall Street” told by Scorsese’s film of the same name with Leonardo DiCaprio.

How Anna Delvey Scammed Half of New York

Anna did not provide any details or comments about her scam to Pressler, but expressed discreet enthusiasm for the prison population, noting that she was impressed at how simple it is today to steal identities, an activity that resulted in one of the prisoners being jailed. cell mates.

Listening to dozens of confidences from scammers from Anna and the staff at 11 Howard (the hotel she stayed in the longest, leaving an astronomical 5-figure hole in unpaid bills), Pressler speculated what worked in Anna’s scam: money. In fact, Anna Delvey has been noted for her curious payment habits.

Introducing herself as the daughter of a Cologne solar magnate (with a fluctuating German), Anna Delvey always paid in cash, with large, brand new bills. She had some credit card numbers with her, but when used they were always rejected. If she had to book a private flight, organize refreshments, or do any other activity that required the use of a credit card, she had friends and acquaintances do it. What fooled the New York elite was the lavishness with which she Anna she spent the money, the promptness with which she paid even the heaviest bills without batting an eye.

Anna Delvey displayed and spent money with a nonchalance that dazzled everyone and did not allow them to see the more bizarre and suspicious sides of her behavior. She would sometimes ask others to settle bills for her, but she would initially pay off the next day, sometimes adding something for the trouble. Her attitude made people think that she was so familiar with money that she forgot to repay this or that loan, believing that she could easily ask the girl to repay the amount owed.