WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.399 Welcome back to the Jeep Dive. It is January 00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:06.820 24th, 2026. And, you know, just let that date 00:00:06.820 --> 00:00:09.839 sink in for a second. We are nearly a decade 00:00:09.839 --> 00:00:12.839 removed from the initial arrest that sparked, 00:00:12.939 --> 00:00:16.140 I mean, a thousand headlines. And yet the algorithm, 00:00:16.179 --> 00:00:19.239 and let's be honest, our own curiosity, it just 00:00:19.239 --> 00:00:21.519 won't let this story die. No, it won't. We are 00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:24.699 talking. inevitably, about the enigma that is 00:00:24.699 --> 00:00:26.980 Anna Delvey. Or Anna Sorokin, if we're going 00:00:26.980 --> 00:00:28.940 by the birth certificate. Though at this point, 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:30.679 I think the two identities have kind of merged 00:00:30.679 --> 00:00:33.500 into something, something entirely new. It really 00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:35.340 has. Yeah. I was looking at the timeline while 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:37.500 prepping for this, and it's actually baffling. 00:00:37.789 --> 00:00:39.829 You have a story that started with a fake heiress 00:00:39.829 --> 00:00:43.149 scamming banks in 2017. Right. Then it goes through 00:00:43.149 --> 00:00:46.509 this massive Netflix boom in 2022. And now here 00:00:46.509 --> 00:00:48.950 we are in 2026 and she's still culturally relevant. 00:00:49.090 --> 00:00:51.030 Still. I mean, she's modeling. She's modeling. 00:00:51.130 --> 00:00:53.530 She's a subject in The New Yorker as recently 00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:56.409 as May 2025. Yeah. It's not just a crime story 00:00:56.409 --> 00:00:58.409 anymore, is it? It's a survival story. Yeah. 00:00:58.490 --> 00:01:01.179 Or maybe a marketing story. Oh, it's. absolutely 00:01:01.179 --> 00:01:03.899 a marketing story. It's a masterclass in personal 00:01:03.899 --> 00:01:07.180 branding, albeit one built on a foundation of 00:01:07.180 --> 00:01:10.170 larceny. I think the reason we're doing this 00:01:10.170 --> 00:01:12.269 deep dive today and specifically why we aren't 00:01:12.269 --> 00:01:14.769 just doing a quick recap is because the whole 00:01:14.769 --> 00:01:18.109 Anna Delvey saga is actually a perfect lens for 00:01:18.109 --> 00:01:20.890 understanding the last 10 years of our culture. 00:01:21.010 --> 00:01:23.310 How so? Well, it sits right at the intersection 00:01:23.310 --> 00:01:25.730 of the girl boss era, the rise of the influencer, 00:01:25.870 --> 00:01:28.989 and the complete gamification of the financial 00:01:28.989 --> 00:01:32.010 system. It touches on everything. That is exactly 00:01:32.010 --> 00:01:33.849 the mission today. I don't want to just list 00:01:33.849 --> 00:01:35.709 the crimes. You can get that on Wikipedia. I 00:01:35.709 --> 00:01:37.709 want to understand the mechanics. The how. The 00:01:37.709 --> 00:01:40.340 how, exactly. Exactly. We have this massive stack 00:01:40.340 --> 00:01:42.780 of sources, biographies, the original New York 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:45.700 Magazine expose, that Vanity Fair betrayal piece, 00:01:45.959 --> 00:01:49.359 court transcripts in the 2019 trial and all the 00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:52.500 updates through mid 2025. My goal is to figure 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:55.540 out how a woman in her mid 20s with no college 00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:58.879 degree and no actual assets nearly convinced 00:01:58.879 --> 00:02:01.099 a hedge fund to give her 22 million dollars. 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:03.700 Right. Like purely logistically, how does that 00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:06.560 happen? It happens because systems that we think 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:10.009 are. Rigid banking, luxury hospitality, even 00:02:10.009 --> 00:02:13.009 the legal system are actually surprisingly porous 00:02:13.009 --> 00:02:15.830 if you know where to poke. And Anna, well, she's 00:02:15.830 --> 00:02:18.110 a genius at finding the soft spots. So let's 00:02:18.110 --> 00:02:20.710 peel this back then. Before she was a fake heiress 00:02:20.710 --> 00:02:23.490 or a house arrest celebrity, she was just a kid. 00:02:23.629 --> 00:02:26.069 And I think the contrast between the reality 00:02:26.069 --> 00:02:28.909 of her origin and the fantasy she sold is where 00:02:28.909 --> 00:02:31.449 we have to start. Yeah. Because the gap is... 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:34.159 Well, it's continental. It is, literally and 00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:36.919 figuratively. She was born Anna Sorokin on January 00:02:36.919 --> 00:02:41.560 23rd, 1991 in Doma de Dovo. Doma de Dovo. Yeah. 00:02:41.659 --> 00:02:43.400 And for those who don't know Russian geography, 00:02:43.639 --> 00:02:46.099 this is a working class satellite town just south 00:02:46.099 --> 00:02:49.180 of Moscow. It's industrial. It is not the backdrop 00:02:49.180 --> 00:02:52.039 for a high society drama. Not at all. Her father, 00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:54.500 Fadim. He was a truck driver. A truck driver. 00:02:54.599 --> 00:02:57.319 And her mother ran a small convenience store. 00:02:57.400 --> 00:03:00.020 This is a very, very standard blue -collar existence. 00:03:00.219 --> 00:03:01.960 There's nothing wrong with it, obviously. But 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:03.939 it's light years away from the trust fund baby 00:03:03.939 --> 00:03:05.780 narrative she later constructed. It's a whole 00:03:05.780 --> 00:03:08.439 different universe. Exactly. And the family migration 00:03:08.439 --> 00:03:11.539 pattern is interesting, too. In 2007, when Anna 00:03:11.539 --> 00:03:14.979 is 16, they move to Germany. They settle in North 00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:17.740 Rhine -Westphalia near Cologne. Her dad gets 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:20.240 into the HVAC and transport business. Her mom 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:23.000 becomes a housewife. But just... You know, try 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:25.599 to picture Anna at that age. She's 16 years old, 00:03:25.719 --> 00:03:27.539 she's dropped into a German Catholic grammar 00:03:27.539 --> 00:03:30.520 school in a town called Eschweiler, and she barely 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:33.340 speaks the language. That is a tough age to be 00:03:33.340 --> 00:03:35.639 an outsider. I mean, high school's brutal enough 00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:38.580 when you fit in. When you're the quiet foreign 00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:40.979 kid who can't speak the language, I mean, you 00:03:40.979 --> 00:03:42.900 retreat. You retreat, or you find an escape. 00:03:43.180 --> 00:03:45.939 And for Anna, that escape was the internet. And 00:03:45.939 --> 00:03:48.340 specifically the visual internet of the late 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:51.759 2000s, early 2010s. Right, the blog era. era. 00:03:51.819 --> 00:03:54.159 She became obsessed with Vogue, with fashion 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:57.340 blogs, with LiveJournal and Flickr. She was just 00:03:57.340 --> 00:03:59.680 consuming images of a world she had absolutely 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:02.060 no access to. I think we've all been there to 00:04:02.060 --> 00:04:04.259 some degree, you know, doom scrolling through 00:04:04.259 --> 00:04:06.819 luxury lifestyles on Instagram or whatever. But 00:04:06.819 --> 00:04:08.840 most people look at those photos and think, I 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:11.159 wish I had that. Anna seems to have looked at 00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:14.419 them and thought, I am that. I just need to get 00:04:14.419 --> 00:04:16.699 the logistics sorted. That's the key psychological 00:04:16.699 --> 00:04:19.720 shift, isn't it? She didn't want to earn her 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:22.120 way into that world. She believed she was already 00:04:22.120 --> 00:04:25.079 of that world and reality just needed to catch 00:04:25.079 --> 00:04:27.819 up. Yeah. So after high school, she briefly moved 00:04:27.819 --> 00:04:30.879 to London in 2011 to attend Central Saint Martins, 00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:33.139 which is, you know, the art school. Huge deal. 00:04:33.259 --> 00:04:35.180 Yeah. But she dropped out almost immediately. 00:04:35.300 --> 00:04:37.379 She couldn't hack the structure or maybe the 00:04:37.379 --> 00:04:40.019 reality of it just didn't match the dream. So 00:04:40.019 --> 00:04:42.480 she went back to Germany for a bit, but then 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:45.259 made the pivotal move to Paris for an internship 00:04:45.259 --> 00:04:48.470 at Purple Magazine. And purple is critical here 00:04:48.470 --> 00:04:50.449 because it's not just a fashion magazine. It's 00:04:50.449 --> 00:04:53.209 an edgy cultural touchstone. It's where the cool 00:04:53.209 --> 00:04:56.610 kids are. It gave her instant credibility. Precisely. 00:04:56.610 --> 00:04:59.269 And she was making peanuts about 400 euros a 00:04:59.269 --> 00:05:01.990 month, which her parents were subsidizing. But 00:05:01.990 --> 00:05:04.569 this is where Anna Delvey is born. The name changed. 00:05:04.750 --> 00:05:06.689 The name changed. She starts introducing herself 00:05:06.689 --> 00:05:09.089 as Anna Delvey. She claims it's her mother's 00:05:09.089 --> 00:05:11.290 maiden name. Which her parents later went on 00:05:11.290 --> 00:05:13.889 record saying is completely false. Totally false. 00:05:14.129 --> 00:05:16.389 Delvey doesn't exist anywhere in the family tree? 00:05:16.589 --> 00:05:19.250 Nope. It was a brand name she invented. And when 00:05:19.250 --> 00:05:21.629 she transfers to Purple's New York office in 00:05:21.629 --> 00:05:24.990 mid 2013, she brings that brand with her. OK, 00:05:25.089 --> 00:05:26.970 so she's in New York now. She's in New York. 00:05:27.009 --> 00:05:29.350 And this is where that outsider status becomes 00:05:29.350 --> 00:05:32.550 her greatest asset. In New York, being a German 00:05:32.550 --> 00:05:35.870 heiress is a very specific, very powerful currency. 00:05:36.029 --> 00:05:38.430 Because nobody can check. Nobody can check. And 00:05:38.430 --> 00:05:41.370 she had this European accent that Americans couldn't 00:05:41.370 --> 00:05:44.050 quite place. It was a mix of Russian, German, 00:05:44.149 --> 00:05:47.089 maybe some affected British vowels she picked 00:05:47.089 --> 00:05:49.720 up. She just sounded. exotic. She sounded like 00:05:49.720 --> 00:05:52.680 old world money. That is such a huge part of 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:54.600 the con. If she had been a girl from Ohio trying 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:56.620 to pull this off, nobody buys it for a second. 00:05:56.720 --> 00:05:59.839 Not a chance. But because she's European, Americans 00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:01.819 just assume there's a castle somewhere. We assume 00:06:01.819 --> 00:06:04.420 there's old money with complex structures we 00:06:04.420 --> 00:06:07.680 don't understand. Exactly. It's the unknown known. 00:06:08.319 --> 00:06:10.439 People filled in the blanks of her backstory 00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:12.819 with their own assumptions about European wealth. 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:15.579 She didn't have to explicitly say, I have a trust 00:06:15.579 --> 00:06:17.819 fund every five minutes. She just had to act 00:06:17.819 --> 00:06:20.019 like someone who did. And she quit her job pretty 00:06:20.019 --> 00:06:23.040 quickly. Oh, yeah. She quit Purple pretty quickly 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:25.360 once she got to New York. And that's when the 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:27.360 real work began. She wasn't just trying to be 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:30.439 a socialite. She wanted to build an empire. Okay, 00:06:30.500 --> 00:06:32.259 let's talk about the Anna Delvey Foundation, 00:06:32.579 --> 00:06:35.500 because this wasn't a lemonade stand. The scale 00:06:35.500 --> 00:06:37.300 of what she was pitching is actually kind of 00:06:37.300 --> 00:06:40.199 impressive, in a delusional way. It was incredibly 00:06:40.199 --> 00:06:42.699 detailed. She wanted to lease the Church Missions 00:06:42.699 --> 00:06:45.100 house. Which is a massive deal. It's a landmark 00:06:45.100 --> 00:06:47.620 building on Park Avenue South, owned by the real 00:06:47.620 --> 00:06:50.959 estate titan Abby Rosen. We were talking six 00:06:50.959 --> 00:06:54.199 floors, 45 ,000 square feet. It's an iconic space. 00:06:54.360 --> 00:06:56.560 And her vision was what exactly? A private members 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:59.459 club mixed with a visual arts center. So think 00:06:59.459 --> 00:07:02.240 Soho House, but with a much heavier focus on 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:05.100 high art. She wanted pop -up shops curated by 00:07:05.100 --> 00:07:07.600 the artist Daniel Arsham, exhibitions by Urs 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:10.560 Fischer, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons. So all the 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:13.399 biggest names. All the blue chip artists. And 00:07:13.399 --> 00:07:15.040 she wasn't just daydreaming this in a notebook. 00:07:15.339 --> 00:07:18.279 She was taking meetings. She had a team. She 00:07:18.279 --> 00:07:21.980 enlisted the son of Santiago Calatrava, the famous 00:07:21.980 --> 00:07:25.060 architect. She was talking to Rue Rogers, the 00:07:25.060 --> 00:07:27.720 son of another famous architect, about beverage 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:30.339 programs. She was putting together a legitimate 00:07:30.339 --> 00:07:32.980 looking business proposal. The vision was actually 00:07:32.980 --> 00:07:35.680 quite coherent then. That's the tragedy of it. 00:07:35.800 --> 00:07:37.899 If she had the money, it probably would have 00:07:37.899 --> 00:07:39.839 been a successful business. It was a good idea. 00:07:40.810 --> 00:07:44.069 But the problem always was the capital. She needed 00:07:44.069 --> 00:07:47.329 roughly $25 million to get this off the ground. 00:07:47.490 --> 00:07:49.949 And to get a loan of that size, you need collateral. 00:07:50.269 --> 00:07:52.509 A lot of it. And her collateral was a complete 00:07:52.509 --> 00:07:54.889 fiction. She claimed she had 60 million euros 00:07:54.889 --> 00:07:58.430 sitting in Swiss bank accounts. But. But, and 00:07:58.430 --> 00:08:00.709 here's the classic excuse, she couldn't access 00:08:00.709 --> 00:08:03.389 it because it was tied up in these complex trust 00:08:03.389 --> 00:08:06.350 structures. It was always just about to be released. 00:08:06.550 --> 00:08:08.730 The trust fund excuse is the grifter's best friend, 00:08:08.730 --> 00:08:11.550 isn't it? Yeah. It's just plausible enough. It 00:08:11.550 --> 00:08:14.209 is. It's plausible enough that wealthy families 00:08:14.209 --> 00:08:16.930 do have complicated trusts, but it's nearly impossible 00:08:16.930 --> 00:08:20.290 to verify without documentation. And this is 00:08:20.290 --> 00:08:22.069 where we get into the nuts and bolts, the mechanics 00:08:22.069 --> 00:08:25.310 of the fraud. How do you prove you have 60 million 00:08:25.310 --> 00:08:28.310 euros when you have zero? You use Microsoft Word. 00:08:28.449 --> 00:08:31.709 You use Microsoft Word. This part kills me. In 00:08:31.709 --> 00:08:34.370 an era of blockchain and encrypted banking and 00:08:34.370 --> 00:08:36.789 all this high tech security, she's sitting there 00:08:36.789 --> 00:08:39.769 with a laptop, literally editing numbers on a 00:08:39.769 --> 00:08:42.929 PDF of a bank statement. It's solo tech. It was, 00:08:42.929 --> 00:08:45.190 but it was effective enough to get her in the 00:08:45.190 --> 00:08:47.509 door. But she knew documents weren't enough. 00:08:47.570 --> 00:08:50.129 She needed a human element to vouch for her. 00:08:50.250 --> 00:08:52.470 So she invented a wealth manager. The legendary 00:08:52.470 --> 00:08:55.649 Peter. The one and only Peter Haneke. She gave 00:08:55.649 --> 00:08:57.809 him a fake email address and a phone number that, 00:08:57.850 --> 00:09:00.409 of course, she controlled. She would use a voice 00:09:00.409 --> 00:09:02.909 disguising app to pretend to be him on the phone. 00:09:03.090 --> 00:09:05.190 I mean, the sheer audacity of that. But here 00:09:05.190 --> 00:09:07.409 is the detail that I find fascinating, and it 00:09:07.409 --> 00:09:09.350 should have been a huge red flag. She used an 00:09:09.350 --> 00:09:11.950 AOL email address for him. An AOL address in 00:09:11.950 --> 00:09:15.549 2016 for a high -powered European wealth manager 00:09:15.549 --> 00:09:19.860 handling 60 million euros. Yes. And that should 00:09:19.860 --> 00:09:22.379 have been a screaming red flag to any banker. 00:09:22.679 --> 00:09:25.429 But again, she banked on the idea that These 00:09:25.429 --> 00:09:27.309 American bankers would just think, oh, maybe 00:09:27.309 --> 00:09:29.909 that's how eccentric old Europeans operate. They're 00:09:29.909 --> 00:09:32.629 old school. It's all social engineering. But 00:09:32.629 --> 00:09:34.610 the cracks did start to show, right? People started 00:09:34.610 --> 00:09:37.149 asking questions. Of course. People started asking 00:09:37.149 --> 00:09:39.950 why Peter was so hard to reach or why his email 00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:42.409 sounded exactly like Anna's speech patterns. 00:09:42.809 --> 00:09:46.429 They were getting suspicious. And her solution 00:09:46.429 --> 00:09:49.149 to this problem is one of my favorite details 00:09:49.149 --> 00:09:51.190 in the whole saga. She didn't just fire him. 00:09:51.350 --> 00:09:54.659 No, no. She killed him off. What? When the questions 00:09:54.659 --> 00:09:56.639 got too hot, she started telling people that 00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:59.039 Peter Heneke had died. It just passed away suddenly. 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:01.820 You're kidding me. I'm not. And then she immediately 00:10:01.820 --> 00:10:04.919 invented a new persona, Bettina Wagner, to take 00:10:04.919 --> 00:10:07.100 over the account. It's like a soap opera. And 00:10:07.100 --> 00:10:10.559 prosecutors later found her Google search history. 00:10:10.620 --> 00:10:13.220 She was searching for things like, create fake 00:10:13.220 --> 00:10:17.039 untraceable email. That is just. It's improvisation 00:10:17.039 --> 00:10:20.320 at its finest. So, she has the fake documents, 00:10:20.539 --> 00:10:22.840 the dead fake manager, and the new fake manager. 00:10:23.159 --> 00:10:25.480 She takes this whole package to City National 00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:29.500 Bank and asks for a $22 million loan. A huge 00:10:29.500 --> 00:10:32.340 ask. And City National, to their credit, eventually 00:10:32.340 --> 00:10:34.220 balked because they just couldn't verify the 00:10:34.220 --> 00:10:37.120 Swiss assets. They did some digging and it wasn't 00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:39.299 adding up. But she didn't give up. No. She went 00:10:39.299 --> 00:10:41.820 to Fortress Investment Group. Now, Fortress is 00:10:41.820 --> 00:10:44.940 a serious, sharp -elbowed private equity firm. 00:10:45.179 --> 00:10:47.299 These guys are not known for getting played. 00:10:47.559 --> 00:10:49.659 They're the big leaguers. Yeah. But they were 00:10:49.659 --> 00:10:51.539 interested. They were interested enough to enter 00:10:51.539 --> 00:10:54.139 due diligence. The project itself sounded plausible, 00:10:54.340 --> 00:10:57.039 but due diligence costs money. Fortress told 00:10:57.039 --> 00:10:59.289 her, OK, we will. look into this we'll have our 00:10:59.289 --> 00:11:01.190 lawyers review everything but you need to send 00:11:01.190 --> 00:11:03.070 us a hundred thousand dollars to cover our fees 00:11:03.070 --> 00:11:05.690 and background checks a hundred grand yeah which 00:11:05.690 --> 00:11:08.490 she obviously didn't have so we enter this circular 00:11:08.490 --> 00:11:10.730 financial loop that makes my head spin she goes 00:11:10.730 --> 00:11:12.629 back to city national right correct she goes 00:11:12.629 --> 00:11:14.190 back to a contact she'd made at city national 00:11:14.190 --> 00:11:16.450 and somehow manages to charm them into giving 00:11:16.450 --> 00:11:18.809 her a one hundred thousand dollar temporary overdraft 00:11:18.809 --> 00:11:21.070 so basically a short -term loan a short -term 00:11:21.070 --> 00:11:23.970 loan based on the promise that her wire transfer 00:11:23.970 --> 00:11:26.889 from europe is coming any day now it was just 00:11:26.889 --> 00:11:30.669 a paperwork So she gets $100 of real money from 00:11:30.669 --> 00:11:34.370 City National based on a lie. And she immediately 00:11:34.370 --> 00:11:36.629 sends that money. Straight to Fortress. Exactly. 00:11:36.830 --> 00:11:39.509 She uses the proceeds of one attempted fraud 00:11:39.509 --> 00:11:42.409 to finance the application for a bigger fraud. 00:11:42.629 --> 00:11:44.950 It's just incredible. But Fortress actually did 00:11:44.950 --> 00:11:47.639 their job. They did. They started digging. They 00:11:47.639 --> 00:11:49.960 noticed discrepancies in her passport versus 00:11:49.960 --> 00:11:52.100 her stated birthplace. They were asking tough 00:11:52.100 --> 00:11:55.500 questions. And then the kill shot. Fortress said, 00:11:55.620 --> 00:11:58.220 OK, the next step is we need to send a team to 00:11:58.220 --> 00:12:00.740 Switzerland to physically meet your bankers and 00:12:00.740 --> 00:12:02.840 see the assets. And that is the moment the music 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:05.960 stops because there is no vault. There are no 00:12:05.960 --> 00:12:08.639 bankers. There's no Peter, dead or alive. It's 00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:11.460 all smoke. Anna knew it was over. She panicked. 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:13.440 She withdrew the loan application halfway through 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:16.460 the process. Fortress had spent about $45 ,000 00:12:16.460 --> 00:12:18.740 of her deposit on their work, so they wired the 00:12:18.740 --> 00:12:22.279 remaining $55 ,000 back to her. So she is now 00:12:22.279 --> 00:12:25.480 walking around New York with $55 ,000 in cash. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:28.879 She still owes City National $100 ,000, so she's 00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:31.659 technically deep in the hole, but she has liquidity 00:12:31.659 --> 00:12:34.259 for the first time. Yep. And what does she do? 00:12:34.340 --> 00:12:36.340 Does she go pay down the debt? Of course not. 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:38.759 She treats it as revenue. She goes on a spending 00:12:38.759 --> 00:12:41.120 spree. She hires a celebrity personal trainer, 00:12:41.320 --> 00:12:45.500 Casey Duke, who costs a fortune. She gets $800 00:12:45.500 --> 00:12:48.779 hair highlighting. She gets $400 eyelash extensions. 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:51.519 She was investing in the image of Anna Delvey, 00:12:51.580 --> 00:12:53.600 hoping that if she just looked the part long 00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:55.740 enough, the money would eventually materialize. 00:12:55.799 --> 00:12:57.879 And this brings us to the lifestyle section. 00:12:58.279 --> 00:13:00.899 or what I call the tipping economy, because $55 00:13:00.899 --> 00:13:03.679 ,000 burns fast in NYC when you're living at 00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:06.240 a luxury hotel. She checked in to Eleven Howard 00:13:06.240 --> 00:13:09.919 in Soho in February 2017. A very trendy, very 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:11.840 expensive spot. She booked a room for roughly 00:13:11.840 --> 00:13:15.120 $400 a night, but, and this is a massive failure 00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:17.500 of hotel protocol, she didn't put a credit card 00:13:17.500 --> 00:13:19.860 on file for a long time. Wait, how is that even 00:13:19.860 --> 00:13:21.980 possible? I can't book a Motel 6 without a credit 00:13:21.980 --> 00:13:23.980 card. I know, but she managed to stay there for 00:13:23.980 --> 00:13:27.980 months. How? By weaponizing the $100 bill. This 00:13:27.980 --> 00:13:31.000 is such a specific and brilliant strategy. She 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:33.100 would just walk around handing out hundreds. 00:13:33.379 --> 00:13:36.679 For everything. If she asked the concierge for 00:13:36.679 --> 00:13:39.360 a restaurant recommendation, here's $100. If 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:43.580 a bellhop brought up a package, $100. She became 00:13:43.580 --> 00:13:45.460 known as the most generous guest in the hotel. 00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:47.710 So the staff loved her. They loved her money. 00:13:47.850 --> 00:13:49.490 And when you were tipping like that, the staff 00:13:49.490 --> 00:13:51.730 just assumes you're incredibly wealthy. They 00:13:51.730 --> 00:13:53.789 stop asking questions. They don't want to annoy 00:13:53.789 --> 00:13:56.330 the golden goose by asking for something as mundane 00:13:56.330 --> 00:13:59.570 as a credit card imprint. It's a bribe, essentially. 00:13:59.610 --> 00:14:01.750 It's a bribe for goodwill and for them to look 00:14:01.750 --> 00:14:04.190 the other way. But the reports say the staff 00:14:04.190 --> 00:14:06.769 didn't actually like her, did they? No, that's 00:14:06.769 --> 00:14:08.990 the irony. The reports say she was incredibly 00:14:08.990 --> 00:14:12.279 rude, classist, and demanding. She would walk 00:14:12.279 --> 00:14:15.340 around the lobby in just leggings and hotel robes, 00:14:15.340 --> 00:14:17.779 treating the staff like servants. But the money 00:14:17.779 --> 00:14:21.080 kept them quiet. She ate at Le Cucu, the high 00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:23.200 -end French restaurant attached to the hotel, 00:14:23.399 --> 00:14:26.399 constantly. She befriended the chef, Daniel Rose. 00:14:26.659 --> 00:14:29.100 She just billed it all to her room number. But 00:14:29.100 --> 00:14:32.059 eventually, even with all the tipping, the accounting 00:14:32.059 --> 00:14:34.539 department has to wake up. The bill hits $30 00:14:34.539 --> 00:14:38.669 ,000. And they realize... There is no card. And 00:14:38.669 --> 00:14:41.009 this leads to one of the most pathetic and hilarious 00:14:41.009 --> 00:14:43.370 moments in the story. The hotel demands payment. 00:14:43.509 --> 00:14:46.590 They are locking her out of her room. Anna, stalling 00:14:46.590 --> 00:14:50.309 for time, sends a case of 1975 Dom Perignon to 00:14:50.309 --> 00:14:53.370 the front desk staff. No. Yes. Like, sorry I 00:14:53.370 --> 00:14:55.730 owe you 30 grand, but, you know, have some vintage 00:14:55.730 --> 00:14:58.090 champagne. It's so childish. It's like giving 00:14:58.090 --> 00:15:00.309 a shiny object to a baby. Here, look at this, 00:15:00.389 --> 00:15:02.600 please. Go away. And the staff couldn't even 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:04.799 accept it because of hotel policy, so it just 00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:07.779 sat there, this monument to her delusion. Meanwhile, 00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:10.360 she is scrambling. She's scamming her friends 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.220 to float her lifestyle. We have to talk about 00:15:13.220 --> 00:15:15.419 Michael Zufu Huang. Young art collector. Yes. 00:15:15.500 --> 00:15:17.519 He was a student at UPenn at the time, but very 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:20.019 wealthy and connected in the art world. Anna 00:15:20.019 --> 00:15:22.379 latched onto him. They went to the Venice Biennale 00:15:22.379 --> 00:15:25.379 together in 2015. Anna asked if she could tag 00:15:25.379 --> 00:15:27.460 along, but then asked him to book the flights 00:15:27.460 --> 00:15:29.759 and hotel on his card, promising to pay him back. 00:15:29.960 --> 00:15:32.399 And the phrase pay you back is a concept Anna 00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:35.039 really struggles with. She never did. And this 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:37.340 highlights a very specific social vulnerability 00:15:37.340 --> 00:15:40.399 of the elite. When you are genuinely rich, talking 00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:42.679 about money is considered tacky. It's gauche. 00:15:42.980 --> 00:15:44.539 Right. You don't want to seem petty. Exactly. 00:15:45.259 --> 00:15:47.639 Michael felt awkward asking her for the $2 ,000 00:15:47.639 --> 00:15:50.440 or $3 ,000 she owed him. He just assumed she 00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:53.039 was good for it and forgot. He didn't realize 00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:55.340 he was being scammed until much later when a 00:15:55.340 --> 00:15:57.700 restaurant called Siddell's contacted him. Oh, 00:15:57.799 --> 00:16:00.080 right, for the birthday party. Yes, she threw 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:02.799 this lavish birthday party there, hired a PR 00:16:02.799 --> 00:16:06.059 firm, the whole nine yards, and then just didn't 00:16:06.059 --> 00:16:08.860 pay the bill. The restaurant saw Michael in the 00:16:08.860 --> 00:16:11.059 Instagram photos and tracked him down to ask, 00:16:11.220 --> 00:16:13.299 hey, do you know this woman? Do you know how 00:16:13.299 --> 00:16:15.799 we can get paid? That's when the penny dropped 00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:18.779 for him. But she just kept escalating. The Blade 00:16:18.779 --> 00:16:21.279 incident is another classic example of social 00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:24.080 proof overriding basic business sense. This one 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:26.379 is amazing. She wanted to go to Omaha for the 00:16:26.379 --> 00:16:28.799 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting to meet Warren 00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:31.639 Buffett. As one does. Just a casual trip to see 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:33.919 the Oracle of Omaha. So she books a private jet 00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:36.419 through Blade, the helicopter and jet charter 00:16:36.419 --> 00:16:41.029 company. The cost is $35 ,390. And she does her 00:16:41.029 --> 00:16:43.149 usual move. She sends a forged Deutsche Bank 00:16:43.149 --> 00:16:45.490 wire confirmation. Now, Blade has a very clear 00:16:45.490 --> 00:16:49.210 policy. Payment must clear up front. But the 00:16:49.210 --> 00:16:52.190 CEO, Robert Weisenthal, had perhaps seen her 00:16:52.190 --> 00:16:54.029 around at parties or she name dropped enough 00:16:54.029 --> 00:16:56.990 of the right people. They overrode their own 00:16:56.990 --> 00:17:00.009 policy and let her fly before the money cleared. 00:17:00.450 --> 00:17:03.789 They let a $35 ,000 service happen on an IOU. 00:17:04.029 --> 00:17:07.430 That is wild to me. And she flew to Omaha. Claims 00:17:07.430 --> 00:17:09.549 she snuck into a party at the zoo and met Bill 00:17:09.549 --> 00:17:12.329 Gates, which is completely unverified, and then 00:17:12.329 --> 00:17:14.289 came back. Blade, of course, never got the money. 00:17:14.490 --> 00:17:16.990 They eventually had to involve the police. So 00:17:16.990 --> 00:17:19.369 the net is really tightening at this point. Eleven 00:17:19.369 --> 00:17:21.369 Howard has locked her out of her room for good. 00:17:21.470 --> 00:17:24.130 She's bouncing between hotels, the Mercer, the 00:17:24.130 --> 00:17:26.829 Beekman, the W New York, getting evicted from 00:17:26.829 --> 00:17:29.450 each one after a few days of nonpayment. She's 00:17:29.450 --> 00:17:31.670 literally homeless, but homeless in designer 00:17:31.670 --> 00:17:34.230 clothes. And this desperation, this is what leads 00:17:34.230 --> 00:17:37.019 to the climax of the story. The Morocco trip. 00:17:37.059 --> 00:17:39.099 This is where the genre shifts from quirky con 00:17:39.099 --> 00:17:41.720 artists to something much darker, almost a psychological 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:45.160 thriller. This is May 2017. She needs a break. 00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:48.480 Or, more likely, she needs to flee her problems. 00:17:48.740 --> 00:17:51.720 So she invites Rachel Deloach -Williams, who 00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:54.339 is a photo editor at Vanity Fair. Right. And 00:17:54.339 --> 00:17:56.839 her trainer, Casey Duke, and a videographer to 00:17:56.839 --> 00:17:59.900 Marrakesh, she promises it's an all -expenses 00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:03.079 -paid trip. A creative retreat, she called it. 00:18:03.180 --> 00:18:05.720 And she books La Mamounia. Which is not just 00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:07.440 a nice hotel. It's one of the most expensive, 00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:09.759 opulent hotels on the planet. And they aren't 00:18:09.759 --> 00:18:12.460 just in a room. They are in a private riad, a 00:18:12.460 --> 00:18:15.099 whole villa with its own pool and a dedicated 00:18:15.099 --> 00:18:19.279 baller. The cost is $7 ,000 a night. I can feel 00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:21.680 the anxiety just thinking about this. They arrive. 00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:24.359 They are living the dream, eating amazing food, 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:27.579 getting massages. And then the hotel manager 00:18:27.579 --> 00:18:29.640 knocks on the door. The credit card machine. 00:18:29.740 --> 00:18:32.299 The ultimate villain in Anna's life story. Her 00:18:32.299 --> 00:18:34.509 guards aren't working. Nope. She blames the bank. 00:18:34.690 --> 00:18:37.910 She blames the time zone. She blames typos. But 00:18:37.910 --> 00:18:40.769 days go by. The bill is ballooning. The hotel 00:18:40.769 --> 00:18:43.069 staff stops being polite. They start standing 00:18:43.069 --> 00:18:45.670 over them at dinner. They send two large men 00:18:45.670 --> 00:18:47.549 to their villa and they start threatening to 00:18:47.549 --> 00:18:50.170 call the police. And in Morocco, you can go to 00:18:50.170 --> 00:18:52.569 jail for unpaid debts. This isn't like the U 00:18:52.569 --> 00:18:54.869 .S. The threat of a Moroccan prison is very, 00:18:55.009 --> 00:18:57.930 very real. And Anna is just sitting there seemingly 00:18:57.930 --> 00:19:01.589 unbothered while Rachel is basically hyperventilating. 00:19:01.589 --> 00:19:03.549 That's the trap. That's how she gets her. That 00:19:03.549 --> 00:19:06.430 is the trap. Anna turns to Rachel and says, just 00:19:06.430 --> 00:19:08.490 put your card down for the hold. It's just a 00:19:08.490 --> 00:19:11.170 hold. I'll wire you the money as soon as we get 00:19:11.170 --> 00:19:14.289 back to New York. It's just a hold. The famous 00:19:14.289 --> 00:19:18.230 last words of so many scams. And Rachel, under 00:19:18.230 --> 00:19:20.509 extreme duress and wanting to avoid going to 00:19:20.509 --> 00:19:23.009 jail, hands over her personal American Express 00:19:23.009 --> 00:19:26.269 and her corporate vanity fare card. The hotel 00:19:26.269 --> 00:19:29.450 doesn't just put a hold. They charge it. All 00:19:29.450 --> 00:19:32.589 of it. How much was it? $62 ,000. Oh, my God. 00:19:32.710 --> 00:19:34.869 That is more than Rachel earned in a year. That 00:19:34.869 --> 00:19:36.970 is a life -ruining amount of debt for a normal 00:19:36.970 --> 00:19:39.750 person. It absolutely destroyed her financial 00:19:39.750 --> 00:19:41.950 stability. And the betrayal is the worst part. 00:19:42.210 --> 00:19:44.309 They get back to New York, and Anna gives her 00:19:44.309 --> 00:19:48.529 the runaround for weeks. She wires $5 ,000 here, 00:19:48.789 --> 00:19:51.670 promises a check is in the mail there. Rachel 00:19:51.670 --> 00:19:53.829 has to borrow money from her parents to pay her 00:19:53.829 --> 00:19:57.130 rent. She is having panic attacks. This is what 00:19:57.130 --> 00:19:59.430 finally pushed Rachel to go to the police and 00:19:59.430 --> 00:20:01.789 help set up the sting operation. We'll get to 00:20:01.789 --> 00:20:03.349 the sting in a second, but I want to pause on 00:20:03.349 --> 00:20:06.529 the check kiting aspect. Because while she was 00:20:06.529 --> 00:20:09.069 destroying Rachel's life, she was also committing 00:20:09.069 --> 00:20:12.750 serious federal bank fraud just to stay afloat 00:20:12.750 --> 00:20:15.740 back in NYC. Right. This was her last ditch effort 00:20:15.740 --> 00:20:18.779 for cash. She started depositing bad checks into 00:20:18.779 --> 00:20:21.819 a Citibank account. She would write a check for, 00:20:21.859 --> 00:20:24.420 say, $50 ,000 from an account that had zero money 00:20:24.420 --> 00:20:26.839 in it and deposit it. OK. Now, banks have this 00:20:26.839 --> 00:20:29.039 policy where they usually make a portion of those 00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:31.160 funds available immediately before the check 00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:33.619 actually clears. It's called the float. So she 00:20:33.619 --> 00:20:35.700 deposits the bad check. The bank says, here is 00:20:35.700 --> 00:20:38.000 $10 ,000 of it while we wait for the rest to 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:40.380 clear. And she just withdraws that cash immediately. 00:20:40.779 --> 00:20:55.500 Exactly. And then she runs. So by October 2017, 00:20:55.740 --> 00:20:58.279 everyone is looking for her. The hotels, the 00:20:58.279 --> 00:21:02.680 banks, Blade, and now Rachel and the NYPD. And 00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:05.740 where is Anna? She is in California at Passages 00:21:05.740 --> 00:21:09.019 Malibu. A luxury rehab center. Of course she 00:21:09.019 --> 00:21:11.019 is. It's the perfect hiding spot. And that's 00:21:11.019 --> 00:21:13.099 where the trap is set. Rachel Williams, working 00:21:13.099 --> 00:21:15.299 with the NYPD and Officer Michael McCaffrey, 00:21:15.359 --> 00:21:17.740 arranges a lunch date. She tells Anna she's in 00:21:17.740 --> 00:21:19.779 the area for work and wants to catch up. A total 00:21:19.779 --> 00:21:22.599 sting. A total sting. Anna walks out of the facility 00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:24.700 to meet her for lunch at a restaurant, and the 00:21:24.700 --> 00:21:26.960 LAPD is waiting in the parking lot to arrest 00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:31.440 her. And so begins the legal saga. The trial. 00:21:32.009 --> 00:21:34.329 This was a circus. It was 201s. The media was 00:21:34.329 --> 00:21:36.690 obsessed. But Anna seemed to treat the courtroom 00:21:36.690 --> 00:21:39.630 less like a legal proceeding and more like a 00:21:39.630 --> 00:21:42.009 runway. It was the trial of the century for the 00:21:42.009 --> 00:21:44.609 Instagram generation. Her defense attorney, Todd 00:21:44.609 --> 00:21:46.710 Spodek, actually hired a professional stylist 00:21:46.710 --> 00:21:49.029 to dress her for court. Wait, I need to emphasize 00:21:49.029 --> 00:21:52.710 this. A stylist for a defendant facing up to 00:21:52.710 --> 00:21:56.230 15 years in prison. Yes. And the logic, Spodek 00:21:56.230 --> 00:21:59.309 argued, was if she looks like a criminal in a 00:21:59.309 --> 00:22:02.319 jail jumpsuit. the jury will convict her. But 00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:04.339 if she looks like a misunderstood businesswoman 00:22:04.339 --> 00:22:06.599 in Saint Laurent and Victoria Beckham, maybe 00:22:06.599 --> 00:22:08.880 they won't. So it was all about perception, even 00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:10.940 in court. It was all perception. She wore Michael 00:22:10.940 --> 00:22:13.859 Kors. She wore high -end designer clothes. There 00:22:13.859 --> 00:22:15.819 was one day where she refused to come into the 00:22:15.819 --> 00:22:17.259 courtroom because she didn't like her outfit. 00:22:17.460 --> 00:22:19.960 She threw a tantrum and delayed the proceedings 00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:23.779 for hours. The judge was furious. But the defense 00:22:23.779 --> 00:22:26.559 strategy wasn't just about clothes. It was about 00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:29.220 the narrative. Spodek argued that she wasn't 00:22:29.220 --> 00:22:32.480 a criminal. She was just ambitious. He literally 00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:34.980 called it the Sinatra defense. He quoted New 00:22:34.980 --> 00:22:37.259 York, New York to the jury. He said, if I can 00:22:37.259 --> 00:22:39.720 make it there, I'll make it anywhere. He argued 00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:41.559 that Anna was just digging a hole to build a 00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:44.079 foundation. He claimed she always intended to 00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:46.480 pay everyone back once her business launched. 00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:49.140 He tried to reframe the entire fraud as just 00:22:49.140 --> 00:22:51.640 fake it till you make it gone wrong. Exactly. 00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:54.140 And here is the nuance that I think gets lost 00:22:54.140 --> 00:22:56.890 in all the headlines. The jury. They actually 00:22:56.890 --> 00:22:59.170 bought some of it. They did, didn't they? They 00:22:59.170 --> 00:23:01.890 did. In April 2019, they convicted her on eight 00:23:01.890 --> 00:23:04.089 counts, including grand larceny and theft of 00:23:04.089 --> 00:23:07.289 services. But, and this is huge, they acquitted 00:23:07.289 --> 00:23:10.230 her on the attempted $22 million loan from City 00:23:10.230 --> 00:23:12.829 National. Why? Their reasoning was basically, 00:23:13.029 --> 00:23:15.250 well, the bank didn't actually give her the money, 00:23:15.309 --> 00:23:17.230 so no harm, no foul. And the Rachel Williams 00:23:17.230 --> 00:23:21.740 charge, the $62 ,000? Acquitted. not guilty that 00:23:21.740 --> 00:23:24.799 is shocking to me how did they justify that because 00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:27.880 the jury viewed it as a civil dispute not a criminal 00:23:27.880 --> 00:23:31.119 theft they reasoned that rachel willingly handed 00:23:31.119 --> 00:23:34.240 over her card she took a risk on a friend who 00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:36.609 turned out to be a liar It was a bad debt, yes, 00:23:36.750 --> 00:23:38.890 but not larceny in the eyes of the law. That 00:23:38.890 --> 00:23:40.670 must have been a bitter pill for Rachel to swallow. 00:23:40.849 --> 00:23:43.349 Oh, absolutely. So Anna is sentenced to four 00:23:43.349 --> 00:23:46.650 to 12 years. She owes $199 ,000 in restitution 00:23:46.650 --> 00:23:50.170 and a $24 ,000 fine. And before she heads to 00:23:50.170 --> 00:23:52.250 prison, she gives that infamous interview to 00:23:52.250 --> 00:23:54.269 the New York Times where she says, I'd be lying 00:23:54.269 --> 00:23:56.289 to you and to everyone else and to myself if 00:23:56.289 --> 00:23:58.569 I said I was sorry for anything. Zero remorse. 00:23:58.769 --> 00:24:01.349 None. She regretted the mistakes that got her 00:24:01.349 --> 00:24:05.029 caught, but she didn't regret the ambition. She 00:24:05.029 --> 00:24:06.930 saw herself as a businesswoman whose venture 00:24:06.930 --> 00:24:09.829 failed, not a criminal who stole. So she goes 00:24:09.829 --> 00:24:12.829 to prison. But in 2026, we know that prison was 00:24:12.829 --> 00:24:16.390 just a temporary setback. This brings us to monetizing 00:24:16.390 --> 00:24:18.569 the infamy, because while she was sitting in 00:24:18.569 --> 00:24:21.170 a cell at Albion Correctional Facility, Netflix 00:24:21.170 --> 00:24:24.329 was writing a check. A very big check. Netflix 00:24:24.329 --> 00:24:27.410 paid $320 ,000 for the rights to her life story, 00:24:27.650 --> 00:24:30.309 which became the Shonda Rhimes series Inventing 00:24:30.309 --> 00:24:32.869 Anna. Now, normally, criminals can't profit from 00:24:32.869 --> 00:24:35.549 their crimes. There's the Son of Sam law. So 00:24:35.549 --> 00:24:37.910 how did this transaction work? Well, the New 00:24:37.910 --> 00:24:39.990 York attorney general froze the funds immediately, 00:24:40.289 --> 00:24:42.710 exactly because of that law. However, the law 00:24:42.710 --> 00:24:44.869 allows the funds to be used to pay restitution 00:24:44.869 --> 00:24:48.339 to victims. Oh, OK. So most of that Netflix money 00:24:48.339 --> 00:24:50.200 went directly to the bank she stole from and 00:24:50.200 --> 00:24:52.819 to pay her court fines. Anna didn't get a briefcase 00:24:52.819 --> 00:24:55.099 of cash. She got her debts paid off by Shonda 00:24:55.099 --> 00:24:57.900 Rhimes. She ended up keeping only about $22 ,000 00:24:57.900 --> 00:25:00.700 of it for herself. Still, it cleared her ledger. 00:25:00.900 --> 00:25:03.319 And meanwhile, Rachel Williams wrote her own 00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:05.940 book, My Friend Anna. Which sold very well. Rachel 00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:09.559 made about $300 ,000 plus a TV option deal with 00:25:09.559 --> 00:25:12.579 Lena Dunham. And this sparked a massive public 00:25:12.579 --> 00:25:15.950 feud. Anna was furious that Rachel was profiting 00:25:15.950 --> 00:25:18.529 from the trauma while Anna felt she was the creator 00:25:18.529 --> 00:25:21.029 of the story. It's a total narrative war. But 00:25:21.029 --> 00:25:23.950 let's fast forward to her release. She gets paroled 00:25:23.950 --> 00:25:27.549 in February 2021 for good behavior. She's out. 00:25:27.609 --> 00:25:29.970 She immediately checks into the Nomad Hotel, 00:25:30.269 --> 00:25:33.390 again with the hotels. And she has a German camera 00:25:33.390 --> 00:25:35.789 crew following her for a reality show. She was 00:25:35.789 --> 00:25:38.069 ready for her close -up, but she forgot about 00:25:38.069 --> 00:25:40.380 the federal government. Six weeks later, ICE 00:25:40.380 --> 00:25:42.339 Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 00:25:42.339 --> 00:25:45.119 her. For the visa. For the visa overstay. She's 00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:47.539 a German citizen with a felony record. Technically, 00:25:47.539 --> 00:25:49.539 she should have been immediately deported. So 00:25:49.539 --> 00:25:51.480 she goes back into custody, this time in ICE 00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:54.160 detention. And she fights deportation for 19 00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:58.480 months. Finally, in October 2022, a judge grants 00:25:58.480 --> 00:26:00.700 a release on house arrest. But strict house arrest. 00:26:00.839 --> 00:26:05.000 A $10 ,000 bond. She's confined to a tiny 470 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:07.559 square foot apartment in the East Village. She 00:26:07.559 --> 00:26:10.220 has to wear an ankle monitor 24 -7. And initially 00:26:10.220 --> 00:26:12.740 she was banned from all social media. Which for 00:26:12.740 --> 00:26:15.319 her is worse than prison. It is oxygen for her. 00:26:15.400 --> 00:26:17.039 But she eventually got those privileges back. 00:26:17.220 --> 00:26:19.519 And this brings us to the final chapter. The 00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:24.859 pivot. From 2022 to today, 2026, she has turned 00:26:24.859 --> 00:26:27.900 that East Village apartment into a content factory. 00:26:28.180 --> 00:26:30.400 Let's talk about the art, because I use heavy 00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:32.859 air quotes here. She started selling drawings 00:26:32.859 --> 00:26:36.400 she made in jail. Art is subjective, right? In 00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:39.680 March 2022, while still in detention, she had 00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:42.970 a pop -up show called Free Anna Delvey. It was 00:26:42.970 --> 00:26:45.250 co -curated by a man named Alfredo Martinez. 00:26:45.650 --> 00:26:47.309 Now, do you know who Alfredo Martinez is? The 00:26:47.309 --> 00:26:49.849 name sounds familiar. He is a convicted art forger. 00:26:49.990 --> 00:26:52.609 He went to prison for forging Jean -Michel Basquiat 00:26:52.609 --> 00:26:54.809 paintings. No way you can't make this up. You 00:26:54.809 --> 00:26:57.250 can't. It's scammers supporting scammers. Then 00:26:57.250 --> 00:27:00.509 she had a solo show called Allegedly in May 2022. 00:27:01.289 --> 00:27:03.470 Models walked around a nightclub with stockings 00:27:03.470 --> 00:27:05.150 over their heads, holding her pencil sketches. 00:27:05.509 --> 00:27:07.849 It's pure performance art. It's trolling. It 00:27:07.849 --> 00:27:11.240 is. But people bought it. By the end of 2022, 00:27:11.579 --> 00:27:15.279 she claimed to have sold $340 ,000 worth of sketches. 00:27:15.740 --> 00:27:17.700 Original drawings were going for $10 ,000 to 00:27:17.700 --> 00:27:20.940 $25 ,000. She used this money to pay her rent, 00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:23.359 which was over $4 ,000 a month, and her legal 00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:26.599 fees. She even launched an NFT collection because, 00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:30.519 well, it was 2022. But the peak of this absurdity 00:27:30.519 --> 00:27:33.480 has to be her mainstream media appearances. Dancing 00:27:33.480 --> 00:27:37.960 with the Stars. Season 33. September 2024. I 00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:39.839 still can't believe this happened. She was cast 00:27:39.839 --> 00:27:43.119 on a family dance competition show. And she danced 00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:46.460 wearing her icy ankle monitor. She had it bedaddled. 00:27:46.480 --> 00:27:49.119 It was part of the costume. That image. Seeing 00:27:49.119 --> 00:27:51.019 her do the cha -cha with a government tracking 00:27:51.019 --> 00:27:53.400 device on her leg. It feels like a Black Mirror 00:27:53.400 --> 00:27:55.579 episode. It's the ultimate symbol of her brand, 00:27:55.720 --> 00:27:57.759 isn't it? She isn't hiding the criminality. She 00:27:57.759 --> 00:27:59.980 is accessorizing it. She was eliminated first, 00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:01.799 by the way. Thank goodness. But she kept going. 00:28:01.900 --> 00:28:04.119 Fashion Week. She hosted a show on a roof because 00:28:04.119 --> 00:28:06.240 she couldn't leave the building. Yep. September 00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:09.680 2023, she teamed up with Kelly Catrone, the famous 00:28:09.680 --> 00:28:12.359 PR maven. Models were stomping around the roof 00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:14.920 of a walk -up in the East Village. Then, as her 00:28:14.920 --> 00:28:16.940 restrictions eased a bit, she started modeling 00:28:16.940 --> 00:28:19.859 herself. She walked for SHAO New York in 2024. 00:28:20.380 --> 00:28:23.480 In February 2025, she modeled for Elena Velez, 00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:26.240 again highlighting the ankle monitor. And now, 00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:29.660 in 2026, where is she? She moved out of the city 00:28:29.660 --> 00:28:32.440 in early 2024. She's living up in the Hudson 00:28:32.440 --> 00:28:34.920 Valley now, still fighting the deportation case, 00:28:35.059 --> 00:28:37.720 still creating content. She's seemingly pivoted 00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:40.980 from scammer to just fixture. She's just around. 00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:43.099 So let's wrap this up with a big question. We've 00:28:43.099 --> 00:28:45.480 looked at the scam, the trial, the prison time 00:28:45.480 --> 00:28:48.779 and the bizarre aftermath. Did she win? It's 00:28:48.779 --> 00:28:50.380 the uncomfortable question we have to answer, 00:28:50.440 --> 00:28:53.029 isn't it? If you define winning as getting the 00:28:53.029 --> 00:28:55.869 $60 million foundation, no. She failed miserably. 00:28:55.930 --> 00:28:58.029 She has a felony record. She faces deportation. 00:28:58.049 --> 00:28:59.809 She is under surveillance. But if you define 00:28:59.809 --> 00:29:02.569 winning as fame, as relevance, as staying in 00:29:02.569 --> 00:29:05.650 the conversation. Then she won, hands down. She 00:29:05.650 --> 00:29:08.349 hacked the attention economy. She proved that 00:29:08.349 --> 00:29:11.210 in modern America, infamy is just as spendable 00:29:11.210 --> 00:29:14.569 as currency. If you are famous enough, someone 00:29:14.569 --> 00:29:17.470 will always give you a platform, a check, a reality 00:29:17.470 --> 00:29:19.569 show. And I think there's a deeper point here 00:29:19.569 --> 00:29:22.410 about the people she scammed. Yeah. Why do we 00:29:22.410 --> 00:29:26.329 as a culture love this story so much? I think 00:29:26.329 --> 00:29:29.309 part of it is that she exposed the elite. That's 00:29:29.309 --> 00:29:31.940 the critical sociological take. She stress tested 00:29:31.940 --> 00:29:35.140 the system. She proved that high society isn't 00:29:35.140 --> 00:29:37.880 a meritocracy. It's a vibe. It's all transactional. 00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:40.099 Right. She proved that a hundred dollar tip matters 00:29:40.099 --> 00:29:42.180 more to a concierge than a background check. 00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:45.059 She proved that powerful bankers can be dazzled 00:29:45.059 --> 00:29:47.799 by a fake accent and a good suit. She embarrassed 00:29:47.799 --> 00:29:49.660 them because she showed everyone that the exclusive 00:29:49.660 --> 00:29:52.319 world is actually very cheap to buy into if you 00:29:52.319 --> 00:29:54.140 just have the confidence. She held up a mirror 00:29:54.140 --> 00:29:57.039 and they did not like what they saw. She was 00:29:57.039 --> 00:29:59.240 a fraud, yes. But she revealed that they were 00:29:59.240 --> 00:30:01.339 also faking it in their own way, playing by these 00:30:01.339 --> 00:30:03.400 unwritten rules that she just mastered. Exactly. 00:30:03.400 --> 00:30:05.420 And that's why we are still talking about her 00:30:05.420 --> 00:30:08.579 in 2026. She is the ultimate trickster figure 00:30:08.579 --> 00:30:11.819 for late stage capitalism. Well, on that cheery 00:30:11.819 --> 00:30:14.599 note, we will wrap up this Deep Dice. From the 00:30:14.599 --> 00:30:16.680 truck stops of Russia to the runways of New York, 00:30:16.819 --> 00:30:19.940 it has been a wild ride. It certainly has. To 00:30:19.940 --> 00:30:22.569 our listener, the learner. Thank you for sticking 00:30:22.569 --> 00:30:24.750 with us through the weeds of wire transfers and 00:30:24.750 --> 00:30:27.210 court filings. We hope this gave you a clearer 00:30:27.210 --> 00:30:30.309 picture of not just what happened, but how it 00:30:30.309 --> 00:30:32.410 all happened. Always a pleasure to connect the 00:30:32.410 --> 00:30:35.509 dots. I want to leave you with one final thought 00:30:35.509 --> 00:30:39.210 to chew on. We spend a lot of time judging Anna's 00:30:39.210 --> 00:30:42.569 victims, the bankers, the hotels, her friends. 00:30:42.970 --> 00:30:45.009 We think to ourselves, I would never fall for 00:30:45.009 --> 00:30:48.160 that. But ask yourself this. In your own life, 00:30:48.299 --> 00:30:50.859 how many times have you assumed someone was competent 00:30:50.859 --> 00:30:53.680 or wealthy or trustworthy just because they dressed 00:30:53.680 --> 00:30:56.559 the right way or knew the right people? What 00:30:56.559 --> 00:30:59.019 would it take for an Anna Delvey to slip past 00:30:59.019 --> 00:31:01.559 your defenses? That is a scary thought to end 00:31:01.559 --> 00:31:04.539 on. Stay skeptical, stay curious, and we will 00:31:04.539 --> 00:31:05.880 catch you on the next deep dive.