Inventing Anna is a success, but Anna risks deportation

While the Netflix series Invent Anna is one of the most viewed titles on the streaming service for a month, the Anna on which the series is based is less fortunate. Russian Anna Sorokin, posing as wealthy German heiress Anna Delvey, has been held in a detention center for illegal immigrants for more than a year after being jailed.

Two of Netflix’s fraud and scam titles were discussed last month. After the much discussed documentary The Tinder scammerwhich is about an Israeli criminal who chased women through Tinder whom he then scammed out of thousands of euros, the series arrived more than a week later Invent Anna from.

Invent Anna is a drama series based on the story of Sorokin, for which Netflix paid him $320,000 (250,000 euros), with Julia Garner in the title role. The story follows a journalist who writes an article about Sorokin, who posed as Anna Delvey in New York’s wealthiest circles, a so-called German heiress with $60 million to her name.

Sorokin is edging his way to social gatherings, luxury vacations, and one step away from establishing his own exclusive art club, the Anna Delvey Foundation, in a multimillion-dollar building. She sometimes stays for months in luxury hotels, where she doesn’t always pay the bills.

She was eventually caught and arrested in 2017 on suspicion of ripping off around $275,000 from financial institutions, banks, hotels and even friends. Delvey is in prison until her case comes out in 2019. She is then sentenced to four to twelve years in prison.

Fear of reprisals

Even behind bars, Sorokin continues to generate income. After an article about her in New York Review (whose creation is also illustrated in Invent Anna) she is approached by Netflix about the rights to her life story. Sorokin receives $320,000 from the streaming service, but is forced by the New York Attorney General to use the money to pay off her debts to people and entities she has financially disadvantaged over the years.

Sorokin will be released in early February 2021 for good behavior, but on probation. For example, she must regularly report to an officer who monitors her life after her release. She returns to a hotel in New York and is followed by a film crew who must document her life.

She cannot enjoy her freedom for long. Only six weeks after her release, she was arrested again, this time because her visa had expired. Sorokin is currently in the United States illegally and is being held in an illegal immigrant detention center.

She’s still there a year later. Sorokin was supposed to be deported to Germany, but vehemently opposes it. Court documents show she claims she is not safe in Germany, where her family moved when she was 16. Sorokin and her family have reportedly been threatened and she fears reprisals for shaming Germany with her crimes.

This attempt to extend his stay in the United States is rejected, against which Sorokin appeals again and the case drags on. Despite multiple requests from her attorney, she is not allowed to wait out the case in freedom, as an immigration judge deemed the risk too great of her reverting to her old fraudulent patterns. .

According to the German newspaper of the mirror Sorokin lost her case and will soon be flown to Germany, but the US Immigration Service cannot confirm. If she is indeed deported to Germany, it is likely that she will live there in freedom. In the country she once claimed her wealthy family came from, there are no known charges against her.