WHEN the much-anticipated drama Inventing Anna drops on Netflix today there will be plenty of viewers who might think the story of Anna Delvey is entirely fictional.
The plot of a Russian truck driver’s daughter who comes to New York posing as a mysterious European heiress and swindles the city’s banks and socialites out of hundreds of thousands of dollars sounds too far-fetched to be true.
But for two years between 2016 and 2017, that’s exactly what Delvey – real name Anna Sorokin – did.
Claiming to be worth millions, the woman who became known as New York’s ‘Con Queen’ rubbed shoulders with the city’s elite, lived in luxurious hotels and dined in the most expensive restaurants, paying her way with stolen cash.
So it’s little wonder Netflix came calling, paying Sorokin, 31, at least $320,000 (£236,865) for the rights to her life story.
There are few people who can claim to know the real Anna Sorokin, but one who came closest is 25-year-old Neffatari Davis.
She was working behind the concierge desk at Soho’s swanky boutique hotel 11 Howard, when Sorokin came hurtling into her life.
“She told me her name was Anna Delvey and tipped me a hundred bucks just for telling her where the best places to eat were,” Neff, a consultant on the Netflix show, tells The Sun.
“She would give a tip every time she needed a reservation or help with something.”
Sorokin was staying in a $400-a-night room and was booked in for a month.
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Alarm bells
Over the ensuing months the two women became good friends, which meant Neff had a front row seat to the crazy, chaotic and ludicrously lavish life that Sorokin was living – and the drama when it all fell apart.
Neff first realised something wasn’t right when she was out for dinner with Sorokin at one of her favoured exclusive restaurants when the credit card that she handed the waiter was declined.
What happened next set alarm bells ringing.
Sorokin handed the waiter a list of other credit card numbers, insisting he tried each one.
“They were all declined,” remembers Neff. “I picked up the bill that night, which I remember was around $300. That may not have been that much for Anna, but it was a lot for me.”
All her credit cards declined. I picked up the bill that night, which was around $300 – not that much for Anna, but a lot for me
Not long afterwards, the 11 Howard hotel realised it didn’t have a credit card on file for Sorokin – and that her mounting bill, which included eating at the hotel’s swanky restaurant and charging it to her room, had reached $30,000.
Poor Neff was charged with broaching the subject with Sorokin, and after months of lies and talk of an elusive wire transfer from her bank in Switzerland, the money finally arrived.
Neff was relieved that her friend had come through, admitting: “I thought it had come from her trust fund. She never went into details.”
Instead, the cash had come from one of Sorokin’s favourite cons, called ‘cheque kiting’.
This involved opening accounts in her name at different banks, writing a cheque from one account and depositing it in the other.
When the money showed up in the account, Sorokin would quickly withdraw it before the banks realised the cheque was dodgy.
Forged bank statements
On one occasion, Sorokin deposited $160,000 in bad cheques and managed to withdraw $70,000 before the banks could stop her.
Another of Sorokin’s tactics was to use bank statements she’d forged showing false assets abroad with a total balance of €60million, which she used to try to secure million-dollar loans from Manhattan banks for the creation of something she was calling the Anna Delvey Foundation.
Even though she wasn’t successful in getting the loans, the forged documents did allow her to have a $100,000 overdraft approved – which, of course, she had no intention of ever paying back.
According to the New York District Attorney’s office, the money from Sorokin’s cons went into another personal expense account, which she used for $4,500 blocks of training sessions with a celebrity trainer, shopping at Apple and Net-a-Porter, and a trip to Marrakech.
She stayed at a five-star luxury retreat, reserving a $7,000-a-night private villa complete with a private pool and butler.
Neff recalls: “She asked me to go on that trip with her, saying she would pay for everything.”
Conned out of year's salary
Neff was unable to get the time off and stayed in New York while Sorokin jetted off with her personal trainer, videographer and another friend, Rachel Williams.
However, after the group had been there a few days, the hotel staff came to Sorokin and told her that the credit card she used to book the resort was useless.
When she was unable to produce a new form of payment, it was down to Rachel to pick up the $62,000 tab for the duration of their stay.
It was more money than she earned in a year, and Sorokin told Rachel that she would wire her $70,000 to cover everything, but she never saw the money again.
By the time Sorokin returned from Marrakech, the management at 11 Howard had locked her out of her room and put her belongings in storage, claiming that they would be returned once her bill had been repaid in full.
Undeterred, Sorokin simply moved to another swanky hotel.
Anna’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and she’s a prime example of what living the dream in New York City, by any means, stands for
Three weeks into her stay there, the management realised that the credit card she had initially presented was no longer valid and that she wasn’t good for her $11,518.59 bill.
Again, Sorokin was locked out of her room and her belongings confiscated.
Meanwhile, Sorokin’s cheque kiting activities tactic had flagged her to the NYPD, and Rachel Williams had gone to the FBI.
On September 5th 2017, a warrant was issued for Sorokin’s arrest.
The NYPD tracked her down to a rehab centre in Malibu which, of course, claimed to be one of the world’s most luxurious addiction centres.
She had paid for the trip by ‘kiting’ two more cheques that had netted her $8,200.
Finally, on May 9th, 2019, Sorokin was sentenced to serve at least four years in prison with a maximum sentence of 12 years.
She was also ordered to pay almost $200,000 in restitution, as well as court fines of $24,000.
However, after serving just 21 months she was released for good behaviour.
'Prison is so exhausting'
It’s no coincidence the Netflix show premieres on 11th February – a year to the day when Sorokin walked free and began documenting her life once again on Instagram.
Before the law caught up with her in 2017, Sorokin’s Instagram page – @theannadelvey – was packed with images of her flaunting her luxurious lifestyle.
On February 12 last year, she posted an image of herself in bed, wearing giant sunglasses and wrote to her 77,000 followers: “Prison is so exhausting, you wouldn’t know.”
But her posts stopped abruptly on March 23rd, when she was re-arrested – this time by Immigration and Customs – for overstaying her visa.
It means Sorokin will watch her story play out again through prison bars.
Neff is in no doubt that we haven’t heard the last of Anna Delvey, and believes the show will be a big hit.
She says: “Anna’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and she’s a prime example of what living the dream in New York City, by any means, stands for.
“That makes for great TV because so many people want that dream and want to know how to get it.”
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