How con-artist Anna Sorokin ripped off the New York elite and became a star | 60 Minutes Australia

the gall of sydney conwoman melissa caddick was as breathtaking as it was horrifying she swindled more than 20 million dollars from her friends and family before disappearing katic is now presumed dead but to understand why people like her think they can commit their crimes you need to meet anna sorekin she convinced new york's rich and famous she was a german heiress about to inherit a 60 million us dollar fortune and then used her lies to live the high life on their money anna copped three years in jail for her scamming but remains unrepentant about what she did she says there's nothing wrong with making it by faking it in new york city what you're gonna do about it arguably the loudmouth capital of the world hurdles of audacity and shameless self-confidence are prerequisites for success [Music] but ana who as you're about to see has more front than bloomingdale's has taken that belief to a whole different level i don't care what you think of me i don't need your approval i don't need to impress you there's no nice way to say it but the petite 30 year old anna is a big con his dubious claim to fame has been her ability to dupe the rich and famous of manhattan and not give a damn i have no patience for people's stupidity do you feel bad about some of the people that got burnt along the way can you name me the names of the people and i'll tell you if i feel bad about them it's not easy interviewing a skilled charlatan you've been described as a con woman very good con artist i don't see myself as such you don't think you've conned anybody no anna's refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing is disconcerting but her willingness to talk about herself does give an insight into the mind of the fraudster she could even unknowingly help us make sense of our own cons melissa caddick and bill gibson i'm not this person who is like trying to trick her way into stuff like i just asked them and they either said yes or no it was not only planned and executed by her but it was done in a really brilliant way that you can't have just happen i mean you you don't create a situation like that out of the blue you have to craft it and you have to be very good maria konokova is a best-selling author and psychologist who's intrigued by how anna has managed to turn trickery into celebrity anna arrives on the scene in new york city and she just kind of arrives with a capital a she knows exactly how to present herself so that she is right away going to be welcomed into new york society [Music] anna's scam was breathtakingly simple she pretended to be the daughter of a german billionaire about to strike it rich with an imminent inheritance her lie was so convincing new york society welcomed her with open arms in turn she fleeced them up market hotels and restaurants even various manhattan banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars it's like i had no idea what was going on so just like i kind of like did things so you weren't that calculated no i don't see myself exactly as a leather climber no just kind of doing whatever i wanted at the time so you just wanted to go straight to the top kind of yes why waste my time just knowing the people who were at the top they just i don't know sorry knowing the people at the top yeah it's like they did not strike me as too smart or like too talented so i felt like why i wanna be rich and i want lots of money anna's drive to get to the top by any means possible began unremarkably she was born in russia and raised in germany in a family notable for well not much neither rich nor poor anna decided first class was better than middle class how did i find germany i was just confronted with the fact i don't know i didn't really like it just i dealt with it i don't know i guess my opinion of it is irrelevant but her opinion of new york was relevant around 2015 anna sorekin reinvented herself as anna delvey and headed to the big apple pretty soon the con was on an attractive soon to be rich air s proved irresistible to the local social set you flashed a lot of cash during this no i did not actually i barely have any cash ever i never have like more than a couple thousand dollars at most on me people talked about you tipping wildly well people are ridiculous yeah tipping concierges 100 at a time i mean was that part of the allure that people saw a little bit of money and they thought you had a lot more well if someone is impressed by a hundred dollar bill i don't know what to tell them one of the brilliant things she does is she does sprinkle in there that she herself is someone that she comes from this european background we're not quite sure where but it's aristocratic in nature and one of the oldest cons there is is people impersonating members of aristocratic families looking back the act was outrageous but it worked brilliantly for anna maria konakova says she probably couldn't believe her luck she doesn't go for the big money right away it's not like she surrounds herself with you know hedge fund moguls she surrounds herself with cool with the element of cool she starts booking tables at the trendy restaurants she starts treating people so that people can get a sense of glamour a sense of kind of being close to something fascinating seems people made room for the intriguing new it girl especially after she fed them another lie the amount of money she was about to inherit from her billionaire father 60 million american dollars you led them to believe that you had a trust fund with millions of dollars in it and it would be accessed when you turned 26. how did that lead them to believe except how do i lead someone to believe how much money i have are you are you telling me now that you you never told anyone that you were an hs why would i tell them how much money i have first of all second of all it's like no one in new york cares you can't impress anyone with 50 million 60 million i don't know maybe with a billion for a bid but then like no one cares this is what people fail to understand did you have a job yes i was a ceo of my company as the scam progressed anna became even more ambitious she announced plans for her one-woman company to build a 22 million dollar private arts club on one of new york's expensive streets it would be called the anna delvey foundation and would be funded by local banks i was working on closing at lease that's going to be like an art center with an exhibition space and that was the foundation that you tried to get the 22 million dollars fraudulently as it turns out why you seem so amused about this anna came incredibly close to getting her hands on the 22 million by posing as her own imaginary swiss financier a man who would email us banks to confirm her fortune and send proof of wire transfers she also forged documents to show evidence she had a bank balance of almost 60 million euros i mean you sold the story and they bought it hook line and sinker because the story was true it wasn't that hard like i did have this project and i did have this vision and it probably would have worked out if i did have the money so but you didn't have the money that's why the project was no good if i would have gotten the money from the bank the whole anna delvey foundation your whole business was just this house of cards it wasn't real anna so many businesses are just a house of cards you just don't know about it anna's arts foundation proved to be just another fake but before it crumbled into the dustbin of unrealised dreams she did manage to convince a bank to give her a hundred thousand dollar overdraft it was enough cash to set up home base at a hip new york hotel and to lure a new set of friends into her web of deceit in 2017 when she checked into a hotel anna established the i'll pay for everything dynamic because she didn't often leave the hotel and she would ask me to come by on my way to and from work and i would go for drinks or dinner and she would sign everything to her hotel room and she said you work harder for your money than i ever have rachel delosh williams was anna's next target with the fake rs trapping the vanity fair magazine photo editor with some fake generosity she suggested rachel accompany her on an all-expenses-paid trip to a five-star resort in morocco what could possibly go wrong my last full day in marrakesh i wake up and there are two managers who come into the villa and refuse to leave without a functioning credit card anna asked me to use my card for now i'm also told that the final bill will be settled when we check out i'm leaving before anna so i think well she's going to have to take care of this before she leaves but when rachel arrived home she discovered her credit card had been charged the whole bill a whopping 62 000 it was more than a year's salary but when she asked anna to repay it all she received were excuses she was in constant contact with a variety of excuses before i could even ask what was going on for once though a victim had the last laugh rachel turned her ordeal into a best-selling book anna wasn't pleased she can say whatever she wants in her little book that no one reads i don't know i don't know i never thought like that's none of her business she's just some random girl in her 20s like anyone who knows me doesn't believe any of that stuff she's a photo editor for the [ __ ] fashion magazine like it's none of her business how much money i have it was the beginning of the end for anna businesses banks and friends she'd scammed were starting to catch on and one night as she tried to leave a ritzy restaurant without paying the police were waiting anna moved from boutique hotel to hellhole prison rikers is a notorious prison in america you're dealing with overcrowding issues you're dealing with lack of supervision and violence you're dealing with safety issues you're dealing with drugs and unruly detainees it's not an ideal place for anyone but it definitely was hell on earth for her [Applause] who'd morphed into millionaire heiress anna delvey and ingratiated herself with new york champagne set being exposed as a fraud and then thrown in a rikers island prison cell was some come down but by may 2018 that's where she was spending her days awaiting trial on theft and grand larceny charges pretty tough place rikers isn't it um you could say so yeah did it affect you has it had long-term effects of course yeah i've never like i never regret going there i thought it was like an invaluable experience i could have never created like anything like this for myself so i did learn a lot from going there you don't regret going there did you say no absolutely not i would never like want to like just cut out that experience from my system [Music] anna had scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars but when the local media found out about her exploits far from being dismissed as a common thief now to fake heiress a german con artist who passed herself off as a wealthy error swindling hundreds of thousands of dollars from unsuspecting people anna delby became an in-demand celebrity people who are such deep narcissists they don't think twice about manipulating others about taking everything from them about stealing their identities stealing their lives because they deserve it and if you deserve it did you do anything wrong why of course not psychologist maria konokova who's written about con artists in her best seller the confidence game wasn't surprised anna was applauded for ripping off the rich why do people almost admire what she's done i find that often times people do see victims of con artists as non-existent because the stories of the con artists themselves are so clever and so fun in a way you look at it and you think wow you know you really pulled one over on them that's great that's so funny you did what then people just double down on the victimless crime because they say oh you had it coming you know it's fine it's not like she went after you know the downtrodden of the world do you see this whole thing as a victimless crime i don't see this case as a crime at all how about that how can you not see it as a crime what was that so criminal that i've done the state of new york however was in no doubt crimes were committed and took the case to trial in 2019 but anna enjoying her newfound fame turned caught into a circus [Music] she hired a celebrity stylist created a social media buzz and made sure all eyes were focused on what she was wearing not what she'd done she's a go-getter she has moxie she has hootsburgh and at the end of the day she gets things done we prepared ourselves for the worst we obviously hoped for the best for anna's lawyer todd spodek it was the perfect strategy if you're on trial where a jury is going to decide whether you go to state prison or not of course you're going to care how you look just like anyone would in that situation a lot of people interpreted that in a bad way didn't they i mean that's a problem they said all kinds of things about me it should not come as a surprise because my whole background is in art and fashion is that really so surprising i care about clothes at the time when i went to trial i was wet in jail for about 19 months something like that and then that's the only thing i could have i couldn't even have like any makeup or hair products clothes were the only thing you can get your own new clothes every night that you go to trial so i just thought that's what i was going to do that was the only thing i had in my control but the fans the fanfare and even anna's fast talking weren't enough to convince the jury and her phony persona and lifestyle kept afloat for years and certainly she was found guilty of grand larceny and theft and sent back to jail until february this year when she was released early for believe it or not good behaviour within days of being given her freedom anna re-boarded the gravy train thanks in part to a lucrative and legitimate deal she did with netflix hi my name is anna delvey we are in new york and um i'm out of jail nobody in their right mind is going to be doing business with you in the future are they well i guess there are a lot of people who are more than the right mind in new york it could be the most truthful thing she said because when anna took us out to show off her new life it was clear new yorkers are mad for it enjoying all the attention of course as always she's a role model to some people she's obviously famous people like engaging with her social media is blowing up so i hope that she could harness all of this into something really positive productive and monetize on it i hope she can make a real business out of it your lawyer has described you as a role model oh thank you [Laughter] i wouldn't say i'm a role model i guess like i'm trying to change the narrative right now and like i'm trying to turn all this attention i'm getting and all the opportunities i've been given towards something good well that's encouraging thank you because i i would have thought that being a role model was something that you are most certainly not i mean you wouldn't want people to aspire to be a fraudster would you i'm not a fraudster so i wouldn't know i think you know we have a grudging admiration for them but at the end of the day they are bad people they take advantage of human bonds and human connections and that's terrible and that is terrifying that there are people like that who don't care do you want to stay in new york of course i love new york why do you want to stay there why not why not no one has that like aside from prosecution even not them no one has actually like done anything bad to me why would i be upset at anyone it turned out pretty well well it didn't turn out very well for you you ended up in jail i felt like i just did all like i had all this amazing experiences and i'm going to write a book about it so i don't regret it personally [Music] but just when it seemed anna's life was returning to well her idea of normal at least two weeks ago u.s immigration officials started proceedings to deport her and she was returned to prison this scene is pretty dull it's just like not the same as right now as she waits for a decision about if she'll be sent packing back to germany well hopefully i won't have to be here germany is worse than jail only one thing is certain we haven't heard the last of anna sorokin coming up from new york to sydney in the case of melissa it was my phenomenal investment genius why anna sorrigan and melissa kerrick no one is going to see me coming our sisters in arms they're proud of it they think that it's a great thing that they've done that's next on 60 minutes are you going to start telling the truth because it doesn't seem as though you're really being terribly forward let's try it again what do you want to restart [Laughter] but you can't restart your life what do you mean yes i can i can do whatever i want how can you have a clear conscience how could i not explain that to me what do you want me to explain i just don't feel guilty and that's it there's not much to explain anna sorokin has mastered the art of the con she might currently be sitting in a u.s immigration detention center sweating on a decision about being deported back to germany but only a fool would write her off new york psychologist maria konokova says their mo's might have been different but there are many similarities between anna and australia's most recent queen of the con melissa caddick so the key to melissa katic's success was to make her targets feel exclusive it was an elite club and you couldn't get in unless she said so this was actually something that melissa and anna share this feeling of exclusivity i'm giving you access to something that you would not have access to otherwise in the case of melissa it was my phenomenal investment genius like bernie madoff that was exactly what he was selling as well in the case of anna it's this rarefied social network it's this kind of cool factor that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise but even when they're getting the money in even when they're dragging those funds in good cons like melissa katic or anna delvey must know that there is an expiry date there's a use by date on all this they must know this in the back of their mind surely no they do not know this in the back of their minds a lot of times con artists who are successful for a certain amount of time they basically think that there's no end date that they can keep doing this indefinitely and it's this feeling of i've already been successful for this long so i'm going to take even more risk and i'm going to do even more because no one is going to see me coming and someone like melissa you become enamored of the lifestyle you start wanting to spend the money and have those trappings of of wealth how much work is involved in keeping the story going the false narrative it must have been exhausting for her yeah it's a full-time job i mean it's basically being a spy except not doing it for your country but doing it for yourself you have two lives you have your cover which is something that you have to keep going 100 of the time and then there's who you actually are i mean there's that real you inside there somewhere and there's always the risk that the real you is going to get lost because it's really exhausting to constantly be someone else and inhabit that in melissa kaddick's case i just find it hard to believe that 25 30 million dollars goes through the books and no one else knows about the con yeah i think you're right to have a level of disbelief about that i mean we we obviously don't have any way of knowing what was happening and we can't ask her but yes it does it does feel like with those amounts of cash somebody should have known also isn't there something about the con artist psychology where they would like to share their success their wins i mean they'd like to you know prove how smart they are right this is true i mean there is that element of narcissism that wants the spotlight that wants the recognition it was funny when um when i was working on my book about con artists people ask how did you get con artists to talk to you i would just start laughing because they can't shut up they want everyone to know how smart and how brilliant they are and even the ones who haven't gotten caught will some often happily talk and they're so grateful that they can finally talk to someone and talk about how smart they are as long as they remain anonymous and are able to keep doing what they're doing yeah they're proud of it they think that it's a pretty great thing that they've done hello i'm tara brown thanks for watching 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minutes segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on nine now dot com dot a u and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 1,108,762

Rating: 4.6612458 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, con woman, scam, scammer, new york, rich, wealthy, fake, heiress, russian, german, anna, sorokin, delvey, money, lies, cheat, crime, criminal, famous, prada, gucci, designer, paris hilton, gossip girl

Id: GQbNnUW_xqw

Length: 25min 54sec (1554 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/IhaveHairPiece]

She scammed private persons, even friends of hers. That's not "acting like you belong".

[u/Draisaitl]

Wow, she’s something else.

[u/Aviatoraeronaut]

How is giving someone like this the same platform as the president of the United States helping? Presidents are interviewed on 60 minutes. Now we bring Charlatans on to popularize them?!

[u/camelzrider]

She is terrible

[u/himmelundhoelle]

Feels like she’s still putting on an act during the interview — hard to make heads or tails.