Con artist Anna Delvey hosts fashion show while under house arrest

She spent 18 months in ICE detention, but now the notorious 'fake German heiress' is back in New York. Lacking permission to live in the US and fighting her deportation to Europe, the scamster is in the Big Apple with an ankle bracelet to track her movements.

As it turned out in September 2023, an ankle bracelet couldn't stop the con artist from holding a fashion show on the roof of her New York home.

On top of the apartment building where Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey) resides, the debut collection of designer Shao Yang premiered as part of the New York Fashion Week. Stylists and models used the building's elevator as their dressing room.

Sorokin is currently under house arrest while she is appealing to avoid her deportation to her native country Germany. However, the 'fake heiress' continues to draw attention with stunts like the fashion show in her home.

"I love the clothes — I would have never done this if we didn’t love the collection..." Anna said in a video call with CNN after the fashion show. "Because, yeah, I mean I can get publicity doing anything."

The notorious Instagrammer and artist will wear her ankle bracelet with style, she told The New York Times. Sorokin / Delvey also has big plans for her future, which she believes is in the United States: "I have so many projects that I’m working on. Art is definitely one of them."

Image: one of her art pieces, ready for auction @theannadelvey / Instagram

So what did Anna Sorokin do to end up in jail? Read further and be amazed by the story of a grotesque scam she pulled on New York's elite before everything fell apart.

In 2013, a young woman with a strange, German-sounding accent began to appear amongst the fashionable and monied elites of New York. She claimed she was an heiress of a wealthy European estate.

The girl had lived in Paris and now wanted to make New York her home. On social media, she had a growing number of followers who pressed 'like' on her photos of designer clothes and lavish parties with the jet set.

(Image: Instagram, @theannadelvey)

It all changed in 2017 when she was caught by the police and exposed as a fraud. She did not have millions and her name wasn't Delvey.

The case of Russian-born Anna Sorokin, who changed her name to Delvey and defrauded New York's elite for hundreds of thousands of dollars, became one of the most followed in the past years.

In early 2022, Netflix released a limited series about the story of Anna Delvey. She was played by 'Ozark' star Julia Garner and the series was produced by Shonda Rhimes of 'Scandal' and 'Bridgerton'.

(Image: Julia Garner in 'Inventing Anna,' Netflix)

The series was received positively and nominated for three Emmy Awards: Outstanding Lead Actress for Julia Garner; Outstanding Casting; and Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.

It tells a story about appearances and make-belief, featuring images on social media of a life that wasn't really Anna Sorokin's.

(Image: Julia Garner in 'Inventing Anna,' Netflix)

In the three years of her scam, she stayed in expensive hotels, had thousand-dollar meals, tipped with bank notes of $100, wore designer clothes, and traveled around the world - all of it paid for by others. Several media, including New York Times, Vice, Insider, and New York Magazine have detailed the case of Anna Sorokin.

(Image: Julia Garner in 'Inventing Anna,' Netflix)

Media like Tatler and Vice have browsed her Instagram account (@theannadelvey), going years back, and they all see the same storyline: a mysterious young woman moving around in upper-class hotels, fashion shows, and parties - all over the world. She leaves a trace of selfies between 2014 and 2017 from Venice, Paris, Marrakesh, and New York.

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

As the magazine L'Officiel recounts, "posing as a German heiress of an unknown fortune, [Anna Sorokin] frequented high-end restaurants, parties, and other networking events, leaving those she met along the way to foot the bill with the promise of paybacks that would never materialize."

Delvey managed to become "a fixture of the New York scene," L'Officiel continues, "going to, and, most importantly, being seen at the best parties and hosting dinners with CEOs, celebrities, and athletes."

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

Avoiding payment of the parties, dinners and expensive clothes she got people to front for her, Anna Delvey (aka Sorokin) defrauded wealthy New York individuals and companies for an estimated $275,000, Women's Health reports. She made them believe she had a trust fund back in Germany worth $60 million.

(Image: Julia Garner and James Cusati-Moyer in 'Inventing Anna,' Netflix)

As L'Officiel, says, "the high volume of trust fund kids in New York allowed her to slip under the radar with her overly-ambiguous background as a German heiress to make friends quickly and easily." She added to the hoax by posting pictures of herself and connecting online with everyone she might need to get further ahead in the future.

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

It was the interaction between the online presence and the friends in real life that made her deceit so successful. Anna Delvey's friends - real people who had in fact, real money - would vouch for her, making the story more and more believable.

(Image: Julia Garner in 'Inventing Anna,' Netflix)

Anna Delvey paid for dinners and tipped generously with money from a bank's advance payment for a business she would never mount, Insider reports.

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

She also borrowed friends' credit cards to pay for exclusive hotels. Photos taken in these luxury places made others believe that she was good for the money she borrowed from them.

(Image: Julia Garner and Katie Lowes in 'Inventing Anna,' Netflix)

She lived in expensive hotels where she managed to stay long enough without having to enter a working credit card. Three hotels would file police reports against her and sue Sorokin once she was in jail, for the tens of thousands she owed them.

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

The deceit lasted over three years, from 2014 to 2017. As the New York Times recounts, "she stole a private jet and bilked banks, hotels and associates out of about $200,000. She did all of this while attempting to secure a $25 million loan from a hedge fund to create an exclusive arts club."

(Image: Julia Garner in 'Inventing Anna,' Netflix)

In 2017, Sorokin got caught. A friend whose $70,000 credit card bill she had not refunded, turned Anna in. As the New York Times reports, the con artist was charged with the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars while trying to steal millions.

The charge against Anna Sorokin consisted of "10 counts of theft, larceny, attempted theft, and attempted larceny as a result of her conning various hotels and financial institutions," The New York Times reported.

In 2019, Anna Sorokin was found guilty of 8 charges and sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison. She also had to pay a restitution fee to reimburse the victims, Insider reports.

Luckily for her, Anna had a story that interested TV makers. Netflix ended up paying her $320,000 to get permission to make her scam into a drama series, Insider reports.

The story goes back in time and describes Anna Sorokin as a plain Russian girl who moves to Germany with her parents after the fall of the Soviet Union. She's a girl with dreams of becoming one of the celebrities she always reads about in glossy magazines.

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

Painting the picture of a young woman who eventually gets caught up in a situation bigger than she could imagine, the series is quite sympathetic towards the scamster.

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

But even before the series, Anna Sorokin gained a new following of 'fans' during her court case, when photos of her outfits were posted on the @annadelveycourtlooks account.

As the New York Times court reporter says, Sorokin wouldn't settle for the clothes that Rikers prison provided for her. She sought the help of a personal stylist, Anastasia Walker, to dress chic and maintain the image of an upper-class lady during the trial.

"Her courtroom outfits became a virtual runway show," the New York Times says, "acquiring an Instagram following and bolstering her image long after her Delvey days seemed over." In fact, later in 2019, dressing like Anna Delvey was a popular choice for Halloween.

After a while, the scammer seemed to have gotten the hang of it and she began to smile for the camera. While in jail, Anna Sorokin continued to post on her Instagram account.

After being in jail for 4 years, Anna Sorokin was released on good behavior in February 2021. She wasn't free for long, though. As she had overstayed her visa, the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained her, in order to prepare to deport the scamster to Germany.

In October 2022, Sorokin was released while awaiting the decision about her deportation. The US authorities wanted to send her to Germany right away and have her fight her repatriation there. But things went differently.

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

Sorokin and her lawyer fought until they got "exactly what I wanted," the convicted fraudster told the New York Times. She is allowed to await the results of her appeal against deportation from the comfort of an apartment in the trendy East Village neighborhood in New York. It's a luxury most undocumented immigrants cannot afford.

(Image: @theannadelvey / Instagram)

Of the $320,000 that Netflix paid Anna, she's had to spend about $223,000 in "restitution and fines, including $100k to City National Bank and $24k to settle state fines," Insider estimates.

(Image: @theannedelvey / Instagram)

Anna Sorokin has also had to pay her attorney at least $75,000, Insider claims. This means there won't be much money left for the fake German heiress to spend on Chanel and champagne.

(Image: @theannedelvey / Instagram)

But perhaps, her renewed media offensive - including interviews with Dr. Phil and Paris Hilton, as well as her art and a fashion show, will take care of that.

(Image: Anna Sorokin in 'This is Paris' publicity material, @theannadelvey / Instagram)

Read another mind-blowing story of a master scammer: the Tinder Swindler