As the Russian woman for years deceived the richest people in New York
'30.05.2018'
Source: New York Post
A Russian woman posing as a social lion and a millionaire, convicted of large-scale money fraud in the United States, gave her first interview about her life in prison on Rikers Island.
“This is not such a bad place,” says 27-year-old Russian-born Anna Sorokina, better known in America as the heir to millions of fortunes, German Anna Delvi. - People think it's terrible, but I see it as a sociological experiment. The girl who steals other people's identities - I didn't even realize how easy it was. "
In January, Sorokina was convicted of fraud against banks, businesses, free accommodation in elite hotels in Manhattan and the purchase of items in expensive boutiques, which she owed hundreds of thousands of dollars along with hotels, says New York Post... Anna claims this was all part of her ambitious plan to open a six-story arts club in Gramercy Park called the Anna Delvi Foundation with pop-up shops, art installations, three restaurants, a juice bar and a German bakery.
As Sorokina herself says, the press calls her a “pseudo-secular lioness”, but at the same time she, rather, considers herself a pseudo-businesswoman. Anna claims that she never tried to portray a socialite, wishing to be taken seriously. And even behind bars, she still insists that her plan had a right to exist - and is outraged that the district attorney called her "a greedy idiot."
“I had a great team and had a good time,” the woman says, stressing that “doing wrong” doesn’t cancel out “a hundred things I did right.”
Born in Russia and raised in Germany, a college graduate was interning for the first time in a fashionable French magazine. Purple, where she created a personality named Anna Delvi and “overgrown” with contacts, which she later used to enter New York social circles. During her studies, she even asked her father, a former truck driver, to pay for her pseudo-secular lifestyle. Parents admit that they always paid for her rent, living and other needs, because Anna convinced them that this would be the best investment. “The future has always been bright,” says the woman's father.
In the new image of Anna Delvi, she lived in expensive hotels, from where she disappeared without payment, traveled the world, attended art and fashion festivals, and told her fellow travelers on airplanes brilliant stories of her artificially created life - which ranged from the story of the daughter of a Russian diplomat to the fate of an oil heiress. tycoon and antiques dealer.
Young art collector Michael Xufu Huang from China agreed to go to the Venice Biennale with Sorokina, taking over the payment of tickets and hotel by credit card. He had no idea that there were problems until he got a call from the restaurant and asked if he had any contacts with Sorokina, since she had not paid the bill for a major birthday party. The man realized that Anna was a fraud.
In 2016, Sorokina began using her elite social networks to build a private club, involving unsuspecting assistants in the process, including the son of the famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, co-founder Nobu Richie Notar and partner of the real estate law firm Gibson Dunn, who was trying to find investors for her.
She also began to spend time with "pharma bro"Martin Shkreli, who later told reporters that she seemed" a popular woman in this city who knew everyone. " Anna portrayed a defunct family financial advisor named Peter Hennecke, who promised payments in transfer transfers, and then “killed” him when the London designer she hired to build the brand demanded a $ 22 debt return.
But the house of cards, built on illegal checks and unpaid bills, eventually collapsed. The hotels decided to conduct their own investigation due to the fact that she did not pay her huge bills, and the bank, which gave her a loan of 100 thousand dollars, began, in turn, to study her alleged assets.
“She deceived absolutely everyone,” one of the interviewees told reporters.
The case of Anna Sorokina
In the summer of 2017, Sorokina lived 10 days in a Manhattan hotel. Beekmanwithout paying for the $ 11 518 number. In late July, she had lunch at the restaurant 4,5-star hotel Le parker meridien on West 56 Street between 6 and 7 Avenue, where she drank a few cocktails, she ate well and tried to leave without paying. Upon arrest and identification, it turned out that July 3 Sorokina-Delvi settled at the W hotel in Albany Street in Lower Manhattan, where she lived for the day's 2 and disappeared without paying $ 503.76 for the room.
Then, investigators discovered larger frauds. Posing as Delvi, the girl tried to get $ 22 million to open a nightclub in two Manhattan banks and provided forged documents that millions of dollars lay on her foreign accounts. In November, 2016 of the year she provided in City National Bank data as if she had a total of about 60 million euros in other European banks, and when a few weeks later she was denied a mortgage, Anna brought the same documents to the bank Fortress Investment Group.
There Sorokina was promised to consider her request if she pays $ 100 thousands of guarantees for future expenses. 12 January 2017, Anna received this amount in City National Bank, convincing a bank employee to give her the money in debt, but did not return a cent. In February, when the bank Fortress investment spent about $ 45 thousand from this amount, checking the financial reliability of Sorokina, she said that she no longer needed a mortgage.
The remaining $ 55 thousand she spent on herself, in particular, hiring a personal trainer; living in a manhattan hotel 11 Howard; shopping in fashion companies Forward by Elyse Walker and Net-a-Porter, as well as buying electronics in a computer company Apple. From 7 to 11, April, Anna put into her account Citibank unsecured checks for a total of $ 160 thousand and before it was established, managed to withdraw $ 70 thousand transfers, of which $ 30 thousand spent on hotel accommodation 11 Howard.
In May 2017, Anna Sorokina chartered at a Manhattan company. Blade for $ 35 thousand a small private plane, which flew to Omaha for the annual meeting of shareholders of the company Berkshire Hathaway and returned but Blade This money has not received. In the same May, she offered her friend an exciting and expensive trip to Morocco entirely at her own expense. The six days of this fascinating journey cost Anna’s friend $ thousands in 62, where the rental of a villa in an 5-star hotel was included. Kasbah Tamadot in the city of Marrakesh, the ancient capital of Morocco. In August, 2017, when she was wanted for theft of services, Anna opened in New York Signature Bank account, put there $ 15 thousands again unsecured checks and managed to withdraw $ 8 200.
The girl was first brought to court on July 31, but then the lawyer was able to secure the release of Sorokina without bail. After that, she fled and hid in Malibu at the Center for the Treatment of Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. However, Anna was found and brought back to court. The judge sent Sorokina-Delvi to Rikers Island without the right of release on bail.
