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Zaren Yo Elizabeth Zavin Nothing Much. How are you?
I got a question for you. Yeah, you got one for me?
Yeah?
What is it?
What's ridiculous?
Oh? Thank goodness because I have an answer for that.
Perfect.
So there was this guy named mister Huan from the city of jiangshah and the Hunan province in China, and he had a bad day. He got into an accident right and then he was taken to the hospital. And then the news went out and people saw that he was in the hospital, and people who loved and cared for him came rushing to be by his bedside. And first his girlfriend showed up, and then his girlfriend showed up, and then his girlfriend showed up, and then his girlfriend
showed up. Seventeen women showed up this man's girlfriend, seventeen seventeen, and they all got to meet each other at his hospital bedside. He's got like the tubes in his mouth. I don't know what he was doing seventeen And then the women, they were a little upset because he turns out that some of the girlfriends he'd been giving them money every month. That's what the South China Morning Post reported.
They also reported that after the accident, some of the women set up an online check group called Quote Revenge Alliance. Oh boy, you know, I don't know what they had planned for mister Juan, but one of them, shoo Lee. She said, I was really worried when I heard that he was in the hospital. And then, you know, she'd been dating him for eighteen months at this point. But then when I started seeing more and more beautiful girls show up, I couldn't cry anymore. So her tears on
her face, yeah, dried up. And then she turned to raise Quiet Quiet Range. She's like, tell me more about this revenge Alliance. Ridiculous?
Right, that is ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Oh my god, I'd love to Old CON's being new again recycling This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
You damn right.
That's right. We've talked about a particular con that's been pulled innumerable times, pretending to be a rich person who's just momentarily down on their luck, and about to come into a huge.
Inheritance, totally very popular con that.
Story, like the refrain from that and Sexton poem Cinderella.
That story just like that, just like that.
Well, this was in my head anyway.
I get it. I know how your head works.
Story. We've talked about having some sort of continental accent and how it makes it easier to pull one over on Americans totally, and we've talked about how some Americans like to have some sense of adjacency to mysterious wealthy Europeans could never yes, well, because we don't really know a whole lot about European history and nobility and wealth. It's just like this mysterious mist of intrigue in gold Leaf.
Totally you're like, oh, I'm the baroness of such and.
Yeah, and you're like, that's amazing. Some people are just that's super appealing. And I think we've talked about how some of the cons discussed here were far easier to pull off in the analog era as opposed to now, so like digital footprints, instant verification and just Google make pulling the wool a lot harder, yes, exactly, but that's not true for everyone. Sarin Elizabeth there are still superstars of scanning, the demigods who can't be held back two
factor verification be damned. The Alzheimers, the ones who just have that ja that allows them to get away with incredible lives. Scene.
I love that. I don't know what right.
I don't know what it is.
Yeah.
So a lot of times when I'm reading about these cons I try to imagine myself in that situation, pulling it off.
It off, yeah, and I just can't not having it being pulled off against you.
Yeah. I don't have that quality, Like, I don't enter a room with that confidence and convincing manner. You don't think so No, I know, so okay, I think you could do it.
Oh.
I do have a bit of overconfidence, but only because I don't really care, Like I'm not worried about Like I not that I'm like, oh I'm so fearless, but I really I hear people say things I'm like, I've never thought. Yeah, I am just like, oh, I question this, I question that I imagine I'm seeing me this way. I'm like, that's a dog work. I'm not doing.
Thirty one flavors of worry.
Worry. Yeah, I just sorted not to be offensive. I try not to hurt people's feelings. I'm at the other end.
But you have the you could convince people if you wanted to, and you're very confidence.
Also, I was right by con artists, so I do know that.
I was like, oh yeah, I have someone else for you today who has that confidence, who has that convincing manner, someone who should be in our con artist hall of fame?
Oh fame?
Who is Elizabeth?
Thank you Elizabeth. She pulled the kind of scams that people were doing in the eighteen hundreds when documentation and communication were limited. Today, she's also amazingly lazy at crafting a backstory like I already love it so good. We usually see oh yeah, we usually see con artists who pull the old I'm coming into some money saying like they referenced an exotic or obscure or like super wealthy sounding relative who will be a benefactor.
Maybe they have a letter with a big seal.
Right, this girl just kept it breezy and Liz generalizations like she's your own adventure when it came to her origin story. So today I want to tell you about a woman known as the Soho Grifter. So much sound is grizzly. It does like it sounds like, yeah, no, it's not. She was a society darling, kind of a society darling that no one knew was a darling. Oh the darling people didn't really know, but were willing to spot some cash.
Ah Ron Darling's daughter, Anna Sorokan do not know that one.
She was born in Russia near Moscow in nineteen ninety one, So that's the year the Soviet Union formally collapsed. Totally a time to be there, totally come on now, yeah, newborn baby, you're a baby. You're a tiny little baby born, so tender and mild. So we hear accounts of what it was like following the collapse in all like the various former republics, black market trade, implosion of the currency struggle.
Unrest, all the factories being seized by the wealthy.
Yeah, but I'm not really particularly familiar with what day to day like was in Russia. Then there's like, you know, they have the huge economic collapse subsequent rise of the Russian oligar.
Yeah, a lot of crime, but like for someone.
Like Anna's family, Anna's family, Anna, I don't know what the day to day was like. But either way, they skidaddled, they got out headed to Germany. In two thousand and seven, when she was sixteen years old, her family moved to
this little town by Cologne, working class place. Her dad got a gig as a truck driver, and then he worked his way up to being an executive in the business, and then he opened an HVAC business that specialized in energy efficient products, which like there's always money in.
That Italian totally.
So Anna was a normal high school student, quiet, unassuming.
You weren't talking about her grades, you mean just in general, in general.
Really having a tough time learning German, Okay, like it was not coming easy to her. That would be me, like I'm not smart enough to learn German.
It's the only language. He's doing school.
Yeah, it's like immersion. And she's like, it's lazy.
Russion at home.
I love it. So she gets out of high school, she makes a big move to London and enrolls in Central Saint Martin's College. Their parents were footing the bill, which like it wasn't a lavish lifestyle, like she didn't have to paying off for the day h VAC was paying off. But it wasn't luxury. It was just like you don't have to.
Her rent taken care of you, focus on school.
Well, she didn't last long in college. She dropped out. She went back to Germany. She's like, I think I got the hang of the language. She got an internship at a PR firm in Berlin, all right, and from there, that's around twenty thirteen or so, she moved to Paris and she got an internship there at Purple quote a European sceinister magazine. Oh no, not the mattress company, Yes,
of course, a European seinster magazine. Like just cover that new job, new Anna, right, So she decided to rebrand herself as Anna Delvy.
Delv Oh wait a minute, that just took me a second. Yeah.
I was like, oh yeah, so like I can so see and feel this era of euro hipsterism fourteen.
Yeah.
Stuff. So while she's at Purple, she connected with Olivierson and Andrea Seravia. And Olivierson is not to be confused with olivers On, the astrophysicist and data scientists.
Or stevens On the actor.
No, see the olivers On. That's the confusion that I had when I went to look him up. I was like she's chilling with this astrophysicist.
Doesn't make sense at all.
Olivier. Olivier and Andrea are euro hipsters and like social big dogs in the middle New York to Paris to London and backpipeline.
Pipeline.
Yes.
Andrea Seravia is the graffiti artist known as Monsieur Andre. Oh really and which you know does our hair and makeup?
Or John he's never talked about it or just Andre.
Yeah.
He's known for mister A. That's a tag that's sort of a stick figure with a top hat that he painted across six continents. Sorry Antarctica, let me show you.
Is sounding familiar? The stick figure with the.
Are going to as soon as you see it, as I find like, because I have problems with this laptop three. Oh yeah, yeah, we'll put that up on Instagram. But if you're curious and you don't do if you're not on the Instagra, it's iconic. Yeah, just look up mister A graffiti and it'll all come together now. So uh. He his work has been in museums. It was in that movie Exit through the Gift Shop. Really, he's he's like that kind of graffiti.
Yeah, he's like mister brainwashed.
Yeah, he also owns restaurants. He owns a nightclub.
Called Le Baron, of course he does.
And he owns a hotel, Hotel Amore.
Of Hotel Love. Yeah, this guy is great. Yeah, I know they all sound better in French, but that's why I'm translating.
Yeah, he I own Hotel Love like great. He designed a lot of luxury goods for the likes of Louis Vutant, Apple Chanels, Yeah, Tiffany, Nike, off White, Converse, and to.
Give you a cent and work with Supreme.
I mean, I know that's missing on there. I want to give you a sense of who he really is. In twenty fifteen, he got busted for vandalizing a boulder in Joshua Tree National Park here in California with his graffiti. He posted photos of it all on Instagram, and like the nature set was pissed, so the website Modern Hiker, and like the legion of readers, they rose up and worked with the National Park Service to track him down.
Really yeah, like fill up your Nalgene bottles, tires up on the subis in twenty like, we're out to catch the defiler. So he was eventually convicted of it. But before that he tried to sue the reporters out of making a public I'm sorry, dude, it doesn't work though, He's like, I'll sue you.
Yeah.
So Anna, she's hanging out with these types, right, and through them, she was able to hang out with the people that they were hanging out with. The whole cnbccen sins is on. Oh completely. So she's flitting around the European social scene becoming presence, and then she found herself in New York. The Hampton's very wealthy people. She was there, That's what I've heard. She was there ostensibly for fashion week, but then she figured she just stayed because it.
Felt right New York. I guess New York.
I hope New York Hampton collection, which like hello, it's like all the new dance.
Go all the best dance shoes, garden shoes.
So okay. So she goes there, she's in the Hampton. She loves it. Purple had offices in New York City, naturally, and it was of course, and I mean, if you want to stay in that job, it's doable, but she didn't, so it wasn't. So there's this guy Tommy Sleet. He was in that scene and he still has that like jet setting install account to support it. Okay, he told me this day, this day, you open it up. There used to be that photo thing called we heart It.
I don't know if you ever hear that. It's like supposed to be like soci media where you'd share photos, but like you couldn't leave comments. It was very strange.
It was like.
It was like, I'll add that to my collection. Everything is very like aesthetic mood board when when it became aesthetic, became a descriptor of something rather than ann set anyway, So this dude, Tommy, he tells New York Magazines the cut quote. She was at all the best parties, one of the two hundred or so people you see everywhere. She introduced herself. She's a sweet girl, very polite. Then
we're just hanging out with my friends. All of a sudden, so this becomes a theme, like the fabulous set see her at all their fabulous events and gathering and pretty soon she's just a fixture. She's like the lint on the back of like some black knit trousers doing a ride along. Its like you don't really realize she's there. Then maybe you make an attempt to brush the lint away with your hand when you see it out of but you're busy doing other things.
You're rich and wealthy, Actually what do you care?
Yeah, so she's everywhere someone hip and cool and rich would be, and she looks and acts the part so like that part was and she got the accent, Zaren, What was her story?
Well was her story, Elizabeth?
Thank you for asking. Elizabeth. She told people she was a German.
Heiress, a German, right, because you've got that fake now.
Her German was pretty bad though, like she still hadn't never got a hold of the line, never never got a grasp on it. So it's like I go around telling people I'm a French heiress, they'd be like start talking about like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm still practicing my English. Let's keep it in that so anyway, who's to judge? Is what I'm trying to say. Honestly, in that social circle there are people with sort of mysterious backgrounds and hazy sources of wealth.
Definitely, or they don't want to talk about because they are so wealthy, and that's what they act like. They're like, Oh, if you knew, you'd take advantage of me.
A dear friend of mine was in that sort of like trust fund, fabulously wealthy and hip global travelers world for a little while. So I heard a lot of stories and I witnessed some of it for myself and sister.
It's a weird world, Oh, I believe you.
They're like random quote Europeans all over it, always people with vague titles, and the states and foreign lands. No one is a day job.
Yeah, from here to do Bay. This is true.
It is weird and it is fascinating. So at this time, like so we're talking like twenty fourteen to twenty fifteen, she becomes a fixture in the New York social scene. One of the super rich folks that she was hanging out with was Michael Jufu Huang, a filthy rich socialite art collector. That's a great day joby.
I was just about to say, how do you get that day jobect art?
I collect art? So he noticed that it parties like she knew pretty much everyone, but no one really knew her. And it was more that like she knew who they were, and that was odd enough, but there was more like he noticed that she lived at a hotel, and she never used credit cards. So like when she would take people out to dinner, she'd treat she'd just like pull out a giant water cash and peel off bills to pay for.
Things like she just won the lottery.
Yeah, like an old West Bank robber.
Yeah exactly, let me reach into my satchela cat.
Actually, So one day Michael he mentioned to that he was heading out to Venice, Italy for the twenty fifteen bill.
Of course, I guess they go to Venice.
Oh yeah, you know what the b in LA is like, it's a international cultural exhibition held every year in Venice. Well, there are two main components, right, so there's the art b in LA and then there's the architecture b in LA and they are held alternating. Right there you go, b by Okay, So then there are four other parts.
There's the music, theater, the Venice Film Festival, the dance and it's this cool and wealthy place to see and be seen, Like you know you're going to pull up in like those glossy teak boats, scarves moisturized.
Yeah exactly, I got you.
So that's where Michael was going, and that's where Anna wanted to go, so I bet she did. She told him like, oh, you know what I'm going too, but I just need some help with logistics.
So she I'm studying her ways totally.
She talked him into hooking her up with hotel reservations and flights to and from hooking up with lights to Yeah, She's like, oh, i'll get you back, no problem, I just need you to put it together for me.
Yeah, you know, I've got my statuel and then yeah.
She'd pull off the old bag of cash and he thought that was fine. He's like whatever, that's just how it works with these people, right, So you know, they jet around and they stayed each other's grand estates villas.
I was just aid Lake Como, and they.
Take each other these lavish dinners or spas or nights out and all like evens out over time, I'm sure, you know, like and they know, Okay, you're good for it, and you'll repay in cash or in kind at some point, like.
I'll see you at the next eyes wide shut party totally.
And some of some of the expenses that you and I would gulp at are like basically chump changed.
Yes that I have seen, Yes, I did see that. I was like I could buy a car with that. You just signed it and didn't even look.
Yeah exactly, and you're like, okay, well that's not a big deal for you. So we get to Venice and she was his shadow. She went to every event with him, but she was never like, oh, come to this with me. She didn't seem to be invited to anything. And then it became clear that like she just did yeah, she didn't have any invitations, and then she ghosted him. When they got back radio silence for eighteen months more interesting, and one day he gets an invitation to her birthday party.
Her birthday party, her birthday party.
She was.
It was at this like very chic and happening restaurant on the Lower East Side, and of course it is. He gets to the party, he looks around. He recognizes tons of people from like the money world, venture capitalists, financiers, real estate moguls, the art collector. These are his people, right, So he's mingling and as he's talking to everyone, he kind of puts together that no one there really knows her,
like they weren't friends. They had all been invited to the shindig by her pr person, And so he left the party. He's like, this is this is all this, but Zerina got weirder, weirder. Let's take a break here. When we come back, more hanky stuff.
Yes, hello, Hi, hello, I'm here for the weird.
Yes, I'm here to supply it. So a couple days after Anna Delvey's birthday party, Michael Hwang got an Instagram DM. It was someone from the restaurant trying to get in touch with Anna because she had skipped out on her bill the Succulent Chinese Meal us.
She'd forgotten her cast, and she had.
Given them a fake phone number and a fake credit card number for the deposit. Oh yeah. So Michael's like, I can't help you. I had nothing to do with the party with her. He later told Artnett that he thought to himself, quote, oh, she's definitely not legitimate or else she's having financial problems, but you know what, maybe.
A temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Either way bad news. So seeing that she wasn't someone to be relied upon, he reached out to her and was like, hey, remember how I load you all that money for the Venice trip. He paid me back and she stalled, but she eventually paid him the payment came from a venmo account in someone else's name, And as soon as that Venmo hit, he blocked her, deleted her everywhere he could. He was like done, washed his hands,
but others weren't. Others weren't done. And she seems totally unbothered by this, Like there was a slight buzz where people in that social set wondered about the source of her funds, like was she the child of a Russian oligarch who used to being German as a cover and her money's like tied up in sanctioned Sure, did she come from a German art collector family with money like the type grown from ill gotten gains during the war, No one knew, but they loved to speculated.
And so in the meantime, that's it's like a hobby for this.
Oh yeah, And then there's Anna like swanning around with gobs of cash, like skipping out on tabs, mooching off people she convinced were friends.
But she has to know that there's this whisper campaign, right or sense it, And she's.
Just fla bothered, un bothered.
I couldn't do that.
Yeah, she's well beyond anything. I could take care. But yeah, she so she goes beyond being just a fixture at events and then starts to actually get to know these folks. Okay, like she sunk her claws in successfully, and she had to act the part like more than just being mysterious and cash heavy, like now she had to have like she had to be doing something.
Yeah, she had to like be like I'm doing Damien her next exhibit or something funny. You should mention that really.
So she told people she wanted to open a quote dynamic visual arts center dedicated to contemporary.
Arts, of course, and it's.
Not just a gallery, it's a cause. She wanted it to be called the Ammid Delvy Foundation.
It's a great place to money.
Well, except it wasn't really a foundation or a charity. No, it was going to be a member's only club like Soho House. So it wasn't even like over pretend it's a charity. It's just she's going to call a social club the foundation. So they would have like restaurants and art studios and gallery spaces. Zarin, there was going to be a juice bar.
Of course, you gotta have a juice bar.
She also said that this like cool girl club that she's starting would have pop up shops curated by famous artists and exhibitions like you know, from people like Damien Hurst, Tracy Emmon, Jeff Coons. Like basically, she looked at the Sachi Gallery cab and was like round them up all the yeah. Oh and Christo the artist who covers the famous for stabbing things and enormous amounts of fabric. He was going to wrap the building for the opening party, the big stuff and a juice bar.
Maybe he should wrap the juice box.
In order to get this rolling, she needed a wealthy anchor for the project, so she cozy up to Gabriel Calatrava. I don't know this, he came from a really rich real estate fan probably, so from Gabriel she was able to get to his brother and all of his connections because he was like the real big real estate guy. And then they all got to work crafting a business plan for this thing. Where would it be located? Church Missions House in Grammercy Park naturally did how big would it be?
How big would it?
Belib whopping forty five thousand square feet?
That's big? Yeah, that sounds that's yeah.
That's like costco How much would this cost.
Saren, how much Elizabeth would this cost?
Thank you Elizabeth somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty to forty million dollars. Wow, Anna heard the number, just like shrugs. She's like, easy, that's nothing, let's do this like she had the money, is what she was saying. So she's like going around telling anyone who would listen that when she turned twenty five, which would happen soon, would she'd be coming into an obsely huge trust fund.
Of course that story, that story a.
Tale as old as crime. So pro tip. Never trust anyone who says they're about to come into a lot of money.
No, unless somebody who's giving them the money tells you that too, and then you can see their banks.
Even so, if they are, that's their business. Of course, I know you're like I AM's Erran. Things don't happen until they happen.
I don't believe in anything till yeah, So you can.
Talk all you want about something that's expected to go down, but it's not real until it is final.
I believe in probabilities.
Yes, So no, scammer. I will not loan you millions of dollars while you wait for your supposed inherence to come through, and even when it does, I won't loan you the money because I don't have that kind of money. That's how I stay out of trouble, buddy, being broke so so much.
I don't even have thirty to forty million pennies, so don't talk to me.
It's like, much like the trust fund. There was also a lease on this place, naturally, and is telling everyone that the lease on the location was secured, Okay, that the Cali Trava company taking care of it. She's like, you know, everything's all in line. You can guess whether or not that's true. With the least supposedly secured, she
needed to get down to brass tacks. Who would be the chef for the fabulous restaurants they'd have there, Who will supply the exotic ingredients and curate innovative recipes for the juice bar? Yes, of course, who would close the funding gap? So she said, look, I got twenty five million on it, but I need to match that in order to make this a reaction.
Nothing.
And the wealthy people she approached were like, good luck with that. Wow, I love that for you, but that's not part of my journey. Yeah, and so she's again undeterred. That's like her perpetual states.
So she's excuse me, I've got to go take a soundbacks.
God. So she starts chasing down a business loan. She told people that that would actually give her more control over the project.
Business loan.
Yeah, that she'd get more respect. She you know what, I don't want private investors anyway.
Totally, So she's going to go to a bank and ask them to back this business.
Yeah. November twenty sixteen, that's what she did. She rolls up into City National Bank and is like, I'm here for twenty two million dollars love now? Oh yeah, she was like, yeah, she was. You can't just waltz in and ask for that kind of money by telling them that you'll soon be wealthy, totally, like you already have to have money. To get money in this life.
Speaking bank, you have to have some proof of worth.
Which she did. She had documents from a Swiss bank showing her balance at sixty million euros.
She is impressive, that is sure.
Why wasn't she just using that money? Well, because it doesn't exist, because she photoshopped the paperwork and so that's all. Well, and good, but City National wanted more.
Documentary photoshop paperwork, like don't just.
Bring these printouts on a fuzzy you know, ink jet. She's like, okay, I'll get on it. And then the bank gets an email from this dude, Peter Hennicky, and all of the documentation they asked for was in there, and then they're like, who, who's Peter Henneke And she kind of danced around it and never provided an answer, and then, like a real rare display of common sense, the bank denied her loan.
Well, it is a bank.
Undeterred, at the end of the year, she went to a Fortress investment group and asked for a twenty five to thirty five million dollar loan from them. Like that's a ballpark figure there.
Yeah, she's just throwing out, you know, is there not a bank. I'm guessing they are more likely to be a sucker to this.
Well, she she gave them the same phony documents. Okay, they said, cool. Right, First, she needed to pay us one hundred grand so that we can check you out, perform due diligence.
Give us some money so we believe you be worth money.
All right, Anna, It's like cool, Yeah, So then she turns around. She goes back to City National. She's like, do you remember how you wouldn't give me that giant loan? Well, in totally unrelated news, can I have a one hundred thousand dollars line of credit? And they're like, yeah, okay, it's for business. They're like that's cool, Yeah, we can do that. They said that. So then and she like she nest the bankrupt there into letting her quote overdraft
her account. She said she was going to wire money to cover the overdraft, like soon.
Really really soon, real soon.
So that's how she winds up with one hundred grand. So she goes and she gives that to Fortress.
Uh huh.
While all of this is going on, she's like working her newly developed contacts to grow her brand.
So I'm still hung up on she was given one hundred thousand dollars as a credit line and said, can I you know overdraft by account while I'm doing all this And they're like yeah, cool, cool. We know ups and downs of money. I once put in a check into a bank that it was my own check, and I put it into the bank, deposited it, and then took out money against that and they were going to threaten to close down my account and report me to
fraud for prosecution. And here's home girl going, can we just like forgive like one hundred grand just for a time?
What's they're?
Right?
Cool? Cool?
Yeah? Yeah right, yeah, that's great.
I love your accent.
Wow, accents are powerful.
We really are. She buddies up to this woman Rachel Deloche Williams, who is it, a Vanity Fair photographer, and they've been like traveling in the same circles for a bit. Rachel knew of Anna at first and was also super impressed because Anna had forty thousand Instagram followers at social
currency I suppose. I mean I told Jim Broke, so Anna basically like friend bombed her, buddy wooed her, took her to like pricey Nights Out, swept her up in like the cash money lifestyle Fair photographer, yeah, and then told her about her foundation project. And Anna was like, I stay at a really posh hotel instead of having like an apartment or a townhouse because I'm a German national and I'm on a visa, so I can't set up like a primary full time residence.
I thought it was like, I don't that too.
Yeah. No, she's just like they won't let me. So February of twenty seventeen, Anna's living at eleven Howard, a chic boutique luxury house.
Sounds like it, doesn't it sound like it.
Howard Johnson, It's Elevin Howard, or as they describe themselves, this is this is. I found the opening of their website quote this innovative hotel where Danish minimalism meets New York realism. And then I closed the website. So that's all I have. I've seen enough bailiff remove this from my courtroom. So she like swanned around the joint in the bathrobe, acting like big imagine I act think the whole thing was hers. Yeah, because she's just like a tiny,
little blonde She's like running around this bathrobe. The staff at the hotel loved her because she's like peeling off one hundred dollars bills for tips like it is nothing. It wasn't that's not like weird. In the world of high rollers.
At high level hotels, a lot of them don't do.
That, Yeah, but a lot and she is just peeling honeys like that is the whitest thing. Yeah, And So one of those staffers was Nefatari Nef Davis. She's twenty five years old. She was the hotel concierge. And that's a big gig, you know, like you have to have, I know, right Anne at the Howard Johnson.
Because she's got to know everything is a college, so much stuff like helicopter who to charm.
Yeah, And so Anna loved Nefy and she'd always stopped on her way in and out of the hotel and always every time left one hundred dollars tip, like just left her a crisp hunderd just for the chat.
Ben Frank for your tongue.
Yeah, Nef said of Anna, quote she ran that place. You know how Rihanna walks out with wine glasses. That was Anna, and they let her saren you and I are obsessed with Rihanna's leaving restaurants. She walks out at the end of a meal with wine in hand, and no one ever stops her because she's Rihanna.
Yeah.
Well, Anna had the same attitude.
I'm telling you, this goes far.
It does.
So she's question you if you don't question you.
Yes, good call. And all I do is question myself.
I know you do so.
Anna, she's like charming Nef, and she didn't just stop to chat. She starts inviting her to like spa treatments and that kind of thing. She basically was like buying a buddy, but there was always an ulterior motive. So she starts telling Nef about the foundation idea of the social club. She needs help booking hard to get restaurant reservations in order to have like impressive business lunches and dinners attract investors, and Nef is like, I'll hold my
new friend. You know, Anna, you're just too interesting and too strange. I'll do this. So she did have some funny business shuffling between.
Do you think, by the way reading about her, that she was funny in person? Like what do you think she had some level of child I.
Think she was like brassy and like.
Fascy would people wouldn't, yeah, and just like and like, okay, I was just curious.
So she's still she's still working City National and Fortress against each other. She managed to get out of the Fortress thing, like while they were still in the due diligence phase. Okay, yeah, so they refunded her fifty five thousand of that fee, of one hundred, and then she shuffled down forty five.
This is what it costs, so they've already.
Spent and then they shuffled that. She takes that that fifty five thousand, puts it into a City Bank account and use that to live large. Like, sorry, City National in your line of credit. Oh, that's city banks money, right.
Okay, so she's got a different bank and she's now suddenly using a credit card.
Yes, and so, but when you live like her, fifty five thousand dollars.
Is in Gover, Oh, it's like a couple of months maybe.
So she had to go back to stiffing people on tabs and like not paying for hotel rooms.
Like not being able to hear people she walks away.
Yeah, that's exactly what she would do. So she went back and forth with eleven Howard, promising wire transfers and stuff like stalling getting the boot from the hotel because she was not paying and the hotel didn't want to offend her, piss her off because like she knew everyone. Yeah, she's about to open the hottest social club in the city. One month though, the one month that she lived there, she ran up a thirty thousand dollars Bill, Are you kidding? No, I'm serious.
So he ran one month.
Yeah, hotel management they sent nef like look, twist her arm, get her to pay, and she's just brushing off, Like I don't brushing her off.
I don't.
I didn't hear that walks away okay, yeah, yeah, it like starts gifting people's champagne, expensive bottles of champagne. Like that's not going to make this go away. She finally did wire the hotel thirty grand from City Bank fifty five thou Yeah, but she didn't give them a credit card for the charges that she was continuing to rack up.
Oh, she's still saying that she's still.
Staying there, And so that the thing is is that she'd already defeated eggs. She had depleted that City Bank account. Where did the thirty grand come? Yeah?
Where did it come from? Elizabeth?
I'll tell you, Elizabeth. It was a classic move bad checks. Oh, yes, she was tiding check and like she would transfer the available funds before they bounced.
Yes.
And so May twenty seventeen, oh Anna went to Omaha, Nebraska, Nebraska see Birchter Hathaway Amos having its annual investment conference.
You went to Warren Buffett's like will meeting.
She would tell people, I gotta go see Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett did not know this.
I bet not. She trying to troll for.
So she legitimately went there. She she took a thirty five thousand dollars private jet flight there and back. And it should come as no surprise that she did not actually pay for this. More promises of wire transfers. I feel like if I tried this, they wouldn't let the jet get off the ground without the money in hand.
Of the time. Now some of us cannot do this. I'm surprised she's not pulling my daddy's a Russian oligarch to put a little fear exactly.
So back in New York there were developments. Elevin Howard was like, we got to get paid.
Yeah.
She hadn't checked out. Yeah, she hadn't checked out when she went to Omaha, so she she's basically living there. Don't forget, she hadn't left in the credit card to charge for the stay. So while she's away in Omaha, they kick her out. They changed the key card to the room, they put all of her crap like design her clothes and all into storage and we'll release it when you pay that decent. Yeah. So she gets back and lost it. She absolutely lost it. So instead of
the classic do you know who my dad is? Or like my favorite, I'll sue you, sure, she went full on like Russian FSB. Yes, she said she was gonna buy web domains in all of the hotel manager's names and blackmail them into buying them back from her.
That is a new level.
That's scary.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna ruin your life and everyone you know, your family, your neighbors.
She talked her way into getting her stuff back, and then she was on her way. The threats were as empty as her bank account. Let's stop here for a moment, listen to some ads. Get centered, and when we come back, more antics, more anatics.
Zaren, I'm still tripping about the FSB threats. I thought about that the entire break, leaning on.
That I would have opened with that kind of stuff.
I knew that the Russian oligarch fear would come in somehow, and you far exceeded what I meant.
It was more just like the technique of it. She never really mentioned that, and apparently she learned that angle to say, I'm going to buy the domains and I'm going to make it your life, hell with it from Martin Screlly.
Wait, the guy who's like did all of the like he raised insolent prices, own someone who tang album and in prison.
Because they knew each other in social circles, he taught her that anyway.
He wow, So it's one of his business moves. I imagine.
Yeah, I think so Nay soken just like absolutely scruples exactly. So she's booted out of her pash hotel gigs. Where do you go?
Where do you go back to Germany.
And get a real job?
Back to Colo again? Am I? No?
She reached out to that Vanity Fair photographer Rachel all Right.
She's like, Rachel, I got a story for you.
You would have gone an adventure. And she's like, Rachel, I have to reset my visa with a trip out of the country, and you know how we should do that. Let's go to Morocco. What I know, pure luxury eye popping. Yeah. Rachel's like why not? And like, Noel, I can tell you exactly why not.
Yeah.
So Anna also invited her personal trainer.
She has a personal, another friend.
Who happened to be a photographer, and then the concierge from the hotel that just evicted her.
You cannot afford this, girl.
Declined, smart she had seen behind the curtain, she knew about Right now she has to. So Anna forwarded the hotel reservation confirmation email to Rachel, and it was for La Mammuonia Resort.
Says, there, what are.
We talking about when we say luxury Moroccan accommodation.
I have no idea. I'll just be flat out with you. You know, I do not know.
This seven thousand dollars a night a night, per night. I of course inspected their website. It's jaw dropping, and it like it's smelled good even through my laptop screen.
I've never lived in a place that my rent for the month was that much, or not even half that much. Yeah.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying, exactly. Wow, And that's per night, per night. Yeah. And so she also Anna's like, you know, the thing is too okay. So that's we have the reservations for the hotel locked in, but my credit card is acting up, and so can you put everyone's flights on your card? And then I'll get you back asap, Rachel against my future advice? Right now? Did it?
The vanity fair rider photography photographer? You know she ain't got that.
No, the trip was amazing, Like the resort incredible. They had a private butler, the tennis lessons, spa treatments. Yeah, they were living it up.
What the Daisy Buchanan is going on.
After a couple of days of this like relaxation in pampering, they decided they wanted to go into Marrakesh and explore and like shop it up. Oh yeah, Anna wanted to look bad. She wanted a klftan.
Yeah, of course, which like Home among Us, doesn't I'd like to be lace.
Yes, at the kaftan store. Klftans are us. Her credit card were.
At this point, but the kafftans where you're like, I could go for some cas.
I was like, I'll go with her. Yeah, I'll put the flight on my car if I get a kaftan out of it. So card gets declined and she's like, oh my god, you guys, I forgot to tell the bank that I'm traveling.
This has actually happened to me. That's alegic that yeah, people could believe that.
And I found though like back in that time, like mid twenty teens, that happened to me.
Yeah. No.
Now, I went out of the country last year and I went to like call AMEX and tell them. They're like, we don't care.
They don't do that anymore.
No, They're like, we'll figure it out.
You know that totally That exact same time that happened to me is well, I had to call Bank of America and be like, look, I'm out of America and I need money.
Yeah.
Yeah, no.
I tried to do patively and they were like congratulations.
Yeah, I guess yeah, way to go girl.
Yeah. So they're like, we got eyes on you everywhere. So her card's not working. She's like, I'll pay you back immediately to Rachel if you can put this kaftan on your card, okay, And she's like okay, fine, And then they go out to dinner and she's like, remember
my card, Rachel, one more time. Okay fine. So she goes to pick up the tab for the fancy dinner and so, like they didn't like hit up a local market and sit on their hotel beds eating snack foods while watching Law and Order like I would chan on dates and yeah, no, they went to like fancy dinners.
So the day after that they go to Explore again, and this time the hotel stopped Anna on her way out and they're like, you know, your credit card was declined, and so then she's like, okay, we'll take care of it. So then the day after that, the staff stops Rachel and they basically said, like, get your friend in line and have her pay up. She goes back to the room, she tells Anna. Anna's like, let me settle this. She goes to the front desk, comes back to the suite
and it's like everything's cleared up. I took care of it. Zaren. Yes, close your eye, I want you to picture it. You are the day manager at La Mamounia Resort. You have a degree in hospitality and years of experience. You know how to be discreet, You know how to keep guests happy. You also run a tight ship. You've seen your share of grifters and scammers at luxury properties over the years. You can sniff them out. You weren't in when this Anna Delby checked in. Had you been, your conradar would
have started pinging. Of course, you always have to give guests the benefit of the doubt. You don't want to accuse someone of being a criminal when they're just dinghy or irresponsible. Word travels fast in the world these circles. Such an accusation can be a business killer if it's not substantiated. But now you've seen all you need to see with this Anna Delvey. She's been running up charges and running away from you, and you are done. This
ends now. You were told her group went on a day excursion, and you're waiting in the porte cochere that leads from the shaded driveway to the resort into a glossy marble lobby. The sun glints off your aviator sunglasses as a cool breeze ruffles the fronds of the palms framing the grand resort. On either side of you are associate managers, one holding the paperwork for the bill, the other holding a walkie talkie ready to summon resort security.
Gentle music drifts out to the driveway from the luxe lobby. It's air delicately scented with sandalwood and damas grows, A range drover pulls up, and Anna and her group steps out, faces turning up to the afternoon sun. You step forward, Miss Delvy, you say, I do not mean to cause offense. It is important that we address the financial aspect of your stay here, but I wish to stress that I
do so in a spirit of respect and consideration. She gives you a small grin and begins walking toward their villa, friends trailing behind like hapless ducklings following their mother into traffic. You and your colleagues follow. Miss Delvy. You repeat, I do not wish to be indelicate. May I respectfully bring to your attention that the account for your villa remains outstanding.
I would be most grateful if we could arrange settlement immediately, should you prefer, our account's department would be delighted to coordinate discreetly with your office or personal assistant to ensure everything is managed smoothly. You're now standing in front of the door to the villa, blocking their entrance. There's a tense silence. Anna turns to one of her friends, Rachel. She says, can you put the charges on your card? I'm having a terrible time with my bank. They'll just
put a hold, the charges won't go through. I'll get on the phone with my bank right now and arrange a wire. Does that satisfy you, Anna asks you, turning to stare daggers at you. Certainly, miss you say, as long as the wire is initiated today, I'll need confirmation. As soon as it's placed, certainly, says Anna, echoing your tone, you go back to your office and wait and wait. So saren she done? Did it? Rachel and the personal trainer, They're like, we're out of here.
I thank goodness.
They head back to New York almost immediately. Anna and the other friend, the other photographer, they stayed at the resort like, still soaking up the luxury. Rachel gets home and checks her card statement. She'd been charged for everything seventy thousand dollars. That's more than she made in a year.
So I'm assuming that it's like an amex if she was able to run it up like that.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh god God.
So Anna texts Rachel and is like, I'm gonna, you know, wire the to you immediately. But we've all heard that one before. Then Anna gets back to the States and just avoids Rachel. And other people that she'd asked to front funds for are also they're starting to call in their loans, like the pressure is building. Anna got a room in a new hotel, The Beakman. Twenty days into her stay, she still hadn't paid, so they gave her
the boot. Then she goes to the w and she only got like a night or so in there before she's kicked out for non paid. Yeah, like it's more corporate where they're like, no, seriously, we will not give you the key without a card. She starts like dining and dashing at like high end, like the restaurant at La Parker Meridian.
Yes, I was just about to take a joke about that one. Nice restaurants, I know.
Yeah, she jumped on her bill there. And Rachel, she's still trying to chase down that seventy grand and like she can't just write that one off like some art collector guy. So she starts investigating. She's snooping around into exactly who is Anna? How can I get my money back? And the thing about the Parker Meridian they filed charges.
Good, I'm god, someone's like, let's bring in some authorities.
Yes, so, Rachel, she's trying to chase down the seventy grand. She can't just write it off. She's investigating, She's snooping around. She's a young journalist, she's a photographer.
Yeah, that's what I'm talking.
Like, who is Anna? How do I get my money back? July thirty first, twenty seventeen, a story called quote wanna be socialite busted for skipping out on pricey hotel bills was published in The New York Post. And now everyone knew.
Did she go as people she knew? Like other journalists cause I think she's a Nandy fair photographer. Should make this a story?
Yeah at this point, not yet. And so Anna, she's like trying to squash it. She's telling all the people she knows, like, oh, it's false, you know, like a New York Post.
He's got whiff of a good story in Ramby, Okay.
And so I'm guessing they got you know, intel from like the hotels, you know, the concierge.
Yeah, maybe not whispered.
Yeah. So with the article out, Rachel is like, I'm taking action. She goes to the cops to report. Cops don't care, I know New York City cops like the Strokes saying so they're like this is a civil matter, and like, you know, go to small claims. Seventy thousand is way beyond the cash. Yeah, so Rachel Larny right, Yeah, Well, Rachel and the others on the trip, they confronted Anna about her scams. Anna never broke like, She's like, I I did not call you. If anything, I'm the victim.
These banks, My god, what they're doing to us. Yes, exactly, So Rachel, she'd really had enough, so she reached out to the New York County District Attorney's office. She's like, dudes, I want to report a con artist. And they're like, dude, I hear you, and we already know about it. Because she they already had her in their sights, kiting checks everywhere, and and now she's on the move. She's headed out to California. So on the way out of town, she
hired criminal defense attorney to Hospodik she hired. Yeah. She wanted him to make the hotel bill skip charges go away because they were all misdemeanors, and so she didn't show up in court for those. She had her lawyer tell the judge that she was off to rehab in La oh No, and those charges were just the tip ofthy iceberg.
Though.
So she's Rachel while this is going on, Rachel's out there testifying to the grand jury about everything she knows, and as a result, Anna gets formally indicted and charged with attempted grand larceny in the first degree Class C felony, the two counts, three counts of grand larceny in a second degree, and then a felony, one count of grand larceny in the third degree felony, one count of theft of services, which is a misdemeanor.
As Heath led Joker once said, rack them up, rack them up, rack them.
Up, exactly. So Anna, she's still in California, but that doesn't matter.
Did you look at passages in Malibu? Uh?
Yeah, she really was the arm of the law. She is long October third, twenty seventeen. She's at passage is Malibu. She gets arrested out in front famous rehab facility. It's so many people get busted there, like the arrest count in front, like on the Citizen app It's just one after anout.
I once knew a guy who worked with as a house painter who was very attractive. He was a male model. He had this older lady like maybe we were at the time. He was like, she was like probably middle age like maybe an early forties, late thirties or whatever. She like was like running for her husband and like promising him all this money was and she asked him to bust her out of passages. She got arrested out in.
Front God bless you. Really, you don't. You're not anyone until you're arrested in front of passages. So she's arrested and gets sent back to New York where she's arraigned and remanded without bail, remand your honor all that. Yeah, that story. So then the New York Post piece had kicked off like a media firestorm. I bet New York Magazine was like, what's.
Up, we got dating on this one. Yeah.
They published an in depth profile and jail house interview with her. The DA's office, meanwhile, was like, I'll give you a plea deal. You can serve three to nine years. Uh huh for everything you've done. She's like, no, big, Nope, looks like we got ourselves an old fashion trio. And so she went to court March twenty nineteen, press eating it up. She turned up every day at the courthouse in like crazy designer does.
I'm sure like the cuts running a coverage all.
Yeah, well, there was an Instagram account that detailed her like vicious looks, Annadelvey Court looks. That's the account, and I can gladly tell you that. On April twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, she was found guilty of four counts of theftis services, three counts of grand larceny, one count of attempted grand larceny, and then she got acquitted of one count of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny.
She got four to twelve years in prison, which blew by the time proposed in the plea deal.
Yeah, three to nine and she got four to twelve.
Yeah. Rachel an article for Vanity Fair, which then led to a book called My Friend Anna, The True Story of a Fake Heiress.
I'm sure that's an option for a movie.
By Lena Dunham. Oh no, less, but nothing's happened with it for Rachel. I mean, someone's got to get a book dealer.
Rachel gets paid, and she got paid.
I want, That's what I want. Anna made parole in twenty twenty one, but then not too long after she got nabbed by Ice.
Are you kidding?
That was back when they wore uniforms and drove official vehicles.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh at someone getting busted by ICE.
It was a different, something different. Wow, she'd overstayed her visa, so they sent her off to an ICE facility.
She was one of the ICE's early victims.
Yeah, she was somehow. At the same time, she managed to sell her story to Netflix for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
So she got busted by ICE before it was cool. Oh that's good for you. I know you like the pun.
Thank you. So that three hundred and twenty thousand that got sucked up in immediately for restitution and lead. Yeah. Netflix released Inventing Anna, and it was produced by Shonda Rhymes. Became a huge hit, and I was all set to watch it, Like, I sat down on the sofa popcorn, I cracked open a Coke zero. I was ready to go because I thought it was a documentary. But then like it turns out it was a mini series based
on a true story. I don't like watching those type of things to prep to tell you stories because then they're invented.
Details you don't know if it's actual.
Yeah, exactly, Saren. I'm a citizen journalist. Of course, Okay, I have standards, all right, Total. I also don't like watching videos if I can just read the information. So the public loved the series, Rachel didn't. She sued Netflix for defamation.
Why not?
I know? Anna? She got out of iced attention on house arrest, and she had to wear an ankle monitor while awaiting possible deportation. She also was ordered to stay off social media.
Total flight.
Yeah, She said that the social media band was worse than the ankle monitor. It's an addiction.
Peace, I really speak to our body times.
Now. Gal's got to monetize these that's what you're saying.
Yeah, they're getting away of her job.
She started a podcast, the Anna Delvy Show, Are You Kidding Me? She also started filming a reality show because of course.
Who would talk to her? I don't know who goes on.
It was called The Show Is Delvy's Dinner Club, where she was going to have people over to her apartment for quote, intimate conversations about Anna's experience with the criminal justice systems, probably her strategy to rebuild her image and plans for the future. As of September twenty twenty five, it has not been released and there's no telling it it ever, will be not satisfied with a podcast and
a potential reality show Old gal hit Network TV. No, she was on the thirty third season of Dancing with the Stars. What I had no idea it had been on that long.
Well, those aren't like normal seasons, like every time we make it, so it's like a.
Year I've never seen it.
That's crazy. Remember, she I guess, I guess she has the names.
Address, so like, I guess you can leave for work. She'd be dazzled the ankle monitor. She like, yeah, it had like the little sequence like the and she just let her feet a fury loose. But she got eliminated in the second episode. Here's my favorite part the Dancing with the Star's co host Julianne Huff how you say? I think she asked her, like, what what's your takeaway from your experience on the show? And Anna just starts cracking up and goes nothing.
Wow. Kept her normal charm.
So earlier this year, she was in designer Elena Veles's New York Fashion Week runway show, still rocking the ankle monitor.
Earlier this year.
Earlier, Yeah, because I'm guessing that degration stuff does not apply equally to all, and I'll just leave it at that.
I'm leaving at that.
Oh and not too long ago, like last month. I mean, don't forget. She's a convicted felon. Okay, did she do her time and she's parole, so.
She did her four years and then it's on parole or no, she didn't even four years. She's on appeal or no, not.
Even on appeal. She's just out on parole. And then ICE picked her up because her visas expired. And apparently if you're her, yeah whatever.
Okay, little blonde who wears a bathrobe and people go, I love her, then your ICE problems are different.
Yeah, you're not on your way to suitan Yeah, not too long ago, like last month. She did an Instagram photo shoot in Prospect Park in New York for Who. Well it wound up being really controversial.
Who needed the name brand recognition of.
This in an Instagram photoshoot? Maybe I do those with the dog. It was controversial because there were all these rabbits in the shoot. Rabbits, yeah, and I guess like the stylist for the shoot and got them from some animal rescue. And then when the shoot was done. They just released them all into the park.
Into the Central Park, the Prospect Park, and.
Then Anna just blamed everyone else. She's like, well, no, naturally.
I saw bunnies are fun.
That's ridiculous takeaway.
Wow, Like, you know, I've always enjoyed being me, But the world would be like just like sideways if I had the ability of these type of criminals, because like I was a very unscrupulous teenager. Could you imagine if I was born into the chaos of post Soviet Russia and then also had like this physicality on my side and then my attitude of being like I would have to work on the shameless part that she's got there?
Didn't she lean into the I'm a victim of the collapsing Soviet states.
I don't think she read enough history. You know, maybe her family didn't really tell her enoughing Jermany. They didn't want to bring it up anymore, you know, they were looking forward.
And she's like she went there like a like sixteen or twelve.
I don't know anyway, what's yours, Elizabeth? What's your ridiculous takeaway? Thanks?
I'm in awe. I'm disgusted and in awe. And it's like it's I didn't have too much of a problem with her until she went after Rachel.
Oh yeah, no, I really just like, you know, she's trying to make it in this world.
Nef was wise, Nef didn't get stung, but like Rachel is just you know, she's an artist basically in journalism in the in New York and it's so expensive, and she's like gets this opportunity, like you know, but again, if something's too good to be true, it is I need to talk about. Golly Dave, oh my god, that.
I let get so.
I just finished listening to your latest podcast and I couldn't get past Zarren's ridiculous thing. At first, I was reacting, like Elizabeth, what a horrible thing to do to these people. But then I was like, where did they get the pillowcases? Where did they suddenly find pillows to dis robe? Who thought of this? Pillowcases? Why people in pillowcases? Like maybe sacks, but pillowcases. Thank you guys, so.
Much, thank you for saying, yes, my girl logistics see.
Little people in pillowcases is wrong.
From the opening of what movie was that?
The Pinocchio in New York?
Yeah, yeah, like that's the thing Walt Disney had a thing.
He's like, how about twelve eleven?
She's what she's saying is so spot on. It's one thing that Oh it's sore. Who went and got the pillowcases? And from where did they source them?
Yes, exactly, gus were talking about throwing resputant in a river. This just ain't right.
They go to a nearby hotel and raid the linens.
But possibly that is a good question.
That is a good question. I love this. That's got me thinking. That's it for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com. We won another award zeron the website for our award cabinets Getting Full by the way, but this one's actually a certificate. Oh anyway, the website won the forty eighth annual Tight Butts Drive Me Nuts pro am Golf Invitational at Pebblebeach.
From that wrench company that turns the nuts right.
Yeah, yeah, the Tight Butts Ratchet Company. Well done, Well done, everybody. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. We're on Blue Sky Instagram. You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and then leave a talk back on the iHeart app reach out Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Sutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave Kusten, who will inherit seven hundred million dollars when he turns twenty five next.
Week You should call him.
Starring an Alice Rutger as Judith. Research is by Instagram Darling with four point eight billion followers Christa Carruthers. The theme song is by Euro Party Boys Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guest heron makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are New York Art Scene financiers Ben Bollen and Noel Brown.
Dis Crime Say It One More Time Gus Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.