Fake heiress jailed for fraud who has Netflix series coming out says ‘in a way’ crime pays

Anna Sorokin, the infamous “fake heiress” who has a book and a Netflix series coming out, recently reflected upon her life in an interview and said crime pays, “in a way”.

Sorokin was jailed for up to 12 years for conning her way into New York’s wealthiest social circles by posing as a German heiress with a $60m trust fund.

She scammed banks, hotels, wealthy friends, and financial institutions to fund her extravagant lifestyle in Manhattan before arrested in 2017.

The 30-year-old appeared on BBC’s Newsnight after getting an early release from prison in February 2021.

When asked if crime pays, Sorokin replied: “In a way, it did.”

In a sit-down interview, she went to say that in her head he never thought he was cheating or getting away with anything.

She said she was called “manipulative”, but that was not true. “I just told people what I wanted and they gave it to me, or I would move on.”

Netflix paid her $320,000 (£230,000) to adapt her life story into a TV series, produced by Shonda Rhimes and starring actress Julia Garner in the lead role.

Sorokin used the money to pay $170,000 as restitution to the banks she scammed. However, she was not allowed to keep all the money due to a New York law that prohibits criminals from profiting from their infamy.

“I never asked for Netflix to buy my story, it just happened,” Sorokin said. “And everything else, it just spun out of my control. It’s not like I orchestrated anything.”

Her story of exploits first gained attention in 2018 when New York Magazine wrote about how she pretended to have a $60m trust fund and ambitious project that would be successful. The story sparked interest of TV producers.

Originally Sorokin was a Russian immigrant living in Germany and daughter of a lorry driver. She left her home at the age of 18 to move to Paris and work at a fashion magazine.

She is now planning to give her own account of her life in a book about her experience in prison.

She blamed the prosecution for having “misrepresented” her motives.

“They said I paraded around New York, posing as an heiress,” she said.

“What happened was strictly between me and financial institutions, it was none of their business. They portrayed me as a wannabe socialite party girl and that was never my goal,“ she said.

“I am writing my book, I have my NFT [non-fungible tokens] project, and my merch, and [I am working on] prison reform,” she said.