Fake heiress Anna Sorokin faces deportation to Germany after one-year battle

Everyone hates con artists but when they manage to get away with everything they've done — even for a little while — people can't help but get intrigued by their methods. Anna Sorokin is one such swindler who had Netflix show Inventing Anna based on her life and captured the attention of millions as ratings soared. Sorokin served four years in jail and landed herself in another battle with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after getting released. She has lost the case and is being deported back to Germany, where she's originally from.

Sorokin conned friends she had made in Manhattan and was convicted on multiple fraud charges in 2019 for bilking banks, stealing a private jet, skipping out on hotel bills and conning New York’s elite. The 31-year-old had been out of jail for just six weeks after the completion of her four-year sentence in Feb 2021 before she was arrested by ICE authorities on charges of overstaying her visa in March.

After losing a year-long battle, she's being deported back to Germany where her family still lives. According to The New York Times, by March 14, a texting app that allows for communication with inmates at the correctional facility noted that Sorokin had been released from custody. Several friends who had spoken to her Monday morning confirmed her imminent deportation.

The con artist was determined to stay in New York, where, she said, she had built her life. She worked on her appeal against her deportation, made guest appearances on podcasts, delved into her own book writing and documentary projects — and even watched part of the Inventing Anna series. “I have a million things in the works,” she texted from her cell last week. “Never a dull moment over here.”

Sorokin won at least a brief reprieve when her immigration lawyer, Audrey Thomas, filed an emergency stay against the deportation, the lawyer said on March 15. She revealed that immigration authorities had already booked her client’s flight to Germany and packed her belongings. “They put everything you own in garbage bags — like they’re throwing you out as trash.”

The hearing for the stay request has not yet been scheduled, the lawyer said. In the meantime it appears Sorokin will remain in the Orange County facility.

Inventing Anna, based on an article written by Jessica Pressler in 2018 for The Cut, has tracked her story, revealing all the people she associated with, talks of the court proceedings and the amount of money she had taken from people.