Inventing Anna

Flicking through Netflix one evening, a title and picture caught my eye, “Inventing Anna”. I read the tiny review below the picture and thought to myself: “Why not? Looks like an easy watch, a film I don’t have to think too much about”, and started watching. It’s actually a ‘limited series’ with 9 episodes, and each episode is over an hour long. I didn’t watch it all in one evening but over the week.

“Reporter Vivien Kent defies her editor to pursue the story of Anna Delvey, an alleged German heiress indicted for grand larceny and jailed without bail”. Sounds ‘cute’.

I was pleasantly surprised that the more I watched it, the more I enjoyed it, and the more I was ‘glued’ as each episode came up. Then I googled it, “Inventing Anna”, and I was actually quite shocked.

The first episode came out on 11th February, 2022. The mini series was created by Shonda Rhimes and Julia Garner starred in the title role. The story is: under an assumed name Anna Delvey, Russian-born Anna Sorokin infiltrated New York’s high society by convincing them that she was a German socialite and an heiress to a massive fortune, all the time scheming and scamming these people out of millions of dollars. Sounds like a good story.

It’s actually a true life story!

In 2018, June, Netflix and Shonaland ‘acquired’ the rights to the life story of Anna Sorokin, as well as the New York article “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People” by Jessica Pressler. The plan was to turn this into a television series. Anna Sorokin received $320,000, (which was used to pay restitution and legal fees). According to Samba TV, 1.6 million US households watched the series in its first four days of streaming. It is still popular today (2025).

Anna Sorokin was born on 23rd January, 1991, in Russia. The family emigrated from Russia to Germany in 2007 when Anna was 16 years old. In 2011, when she was 20 years old, Anna went to live in London and Paris, finally relocating to New York in 2013. Her ‘idea’ was to open a private members’ club and arts foundation, which would include leasing a large building to feature pop-up shops and exhibitions by notable artists. She created fake financial documents to ‘substantiate’ her claims that she had a multi-million-euro trust fund, as well as forging multiple wire transfer ‘communications’. She used fraudulent cheques to trick banks, acquaintances and realtors into paying out cash and getting large loans without collateral.

Anna used all of this to fund her lavish lifestyle, which included residences in several upscale hotels. Let’s face it, she had to be clever to do all of this. It makes me wonder what she ‘could’ have done legally with such a business brain?

From 2013 up until 2017, Anna defrauded and deceived major financial institutions, banks, hotels and individuals. She was arrested in 2017, and in 2019, Anna was convicted of attempted grand larceny, larceny in the second degree, and theft of services. Anna was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison. After serving 2 years, Anna was released on parole (because of ‘good behaviour’) but she was taken into custody 6 weeks later for deportation to Germany. After 19 months of detention, she was granted a $10,000 bail bond and released to house arrest. Anna is still under house arrest today, with an electronic tag on her ankle. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took Anna into custody for overstaying her visa. She is legally contesting deportation back to Germany . It was ruled that: “She would have the ability and inclination to continue to commit fraudulent and dishonest acts”.

There is so much more to this “Story” and the series doesn’t exactly dig deep. Having said that, it is still a good watch and good entertainment. The fact that “Inventing Anna” is a real life story just makes watching even more ‘juicy’.

Each episode starts with this disclaimer: “This whole story is completely true. Except for all the parts that are totally made up”.