Fake Money in Manhattan: Anna Delvey

Fake Money in Manhattan: Anna Delvey

Zelda Fishman, Managing Editor

Anna Delvey is a woman who’s been circulating the media recently with the hit show, Inventing Anna. It tells the story of a girl coming to America, who’s supposedly from Germany but no one really knows who she is. All they know is that she’s important, and frankly, that’s all they need to know. 

Anna Sorokin is her real name. Why would she change her last name but not her first? No one knows. The common theme with Anna is that she has a way of manipulating the mind of someone into trusting her without really knowing why they trust her. She came to New York with hopes to start an empire. An exclusive club only for the VIP’s of the VIP table. The only thing wrong was that she was dead broke. So, she started rumors. Some of them included that she’s a German heiress, that she has a trust fund back in Germany and some even as crazy as the fact that she slept with Bill Gates. She started these rumors because she needed to market herself to large banks as if she was rich. She wanted a 40 million dollar loan to start this club so she needed to seem like she had enough capital to eventually pay the money back. In recent interviews with Alex Cooper, she states, “I never intended on borrowing money from people and never giving it back. I just needed more time.” 

Rachel Williams was Anna’s best friend in 2016 and one of Anna’s most well known victims. She met Anna in a bar in New York in 2016. She describes her first impression of her as strong minded and sophisticated but she later tells reporters that she was a genius in the way she acted as how she wanted to be perceived. They became close friends, going out to bars and having dinner together in the hotel Anna was living in at this time, 11 Howard. Rachel said that Anna always sent the bill to her room. As they became closer and closer Anna invited Rachel on a trip to Morocco which was labeled a “business trip” (all expenses paid) which she invited 5-6 of her friends on. The day before comes around and Anna hasn’t booked the tickets yet. Rachel, in a moment of desperation thinking the trip might be canceled, offers to pay for the tickets thinking that Anna would reimburse her because it was her company. They get to JFK and Anna accidentally checks the luggage that her wallet is in and since Rachel is already paying for the tickets, Anna suggests adding the costs of the luggage onto the tab she is using called Rachel’s credit card. This trend continues on and on for the rest of the trip and soon the bill stacks up to $62,000. 

Anna Sorokin is complex because you can either label her a con-artist or a genius. The way she was able to manipulate top society in one of the biggest entrepreneurial cities in the world and get $40 million from it is outrageous. Now, she’s battling  to stay in the United States in hopes of not getting deported back to Germany. No one knows what will happen with Anna’s story or if its the end of the road but one thing is for sure that’s it’s a whirlwind of mystery.