Russian-born German twentysomething Anna Sorokin fooled New York's elite when she posed as a German heiress called Anna Delvey, who supposedly had a $66 million (£48m) trust fund. Living a jet-set lifestyle, Sorokin stayed at top hotels for months on end, partied with the rich and famous, and took extravagant holidays, documenting her high life on Instagram as @theannadelvey. But in 2017 her ruse unravelled, and Sorokin was finally arrested. After scamming banks, luxury hotels and individuals out of more than $200,000 (£145k), she was convicted of theft of services and grand larceny in 2019 and sentenced to 12 years in jail. But this February Sorokin was released from prison early, and her scam story is being turned into a Netflix series. While Sorokin has now said she is "ashamed" of what she did, how did she get away with it for so long? Click or scroll on to find out.

Sorokin, now 30, pictured right at a fashion event in New York in 2014, successfully kept up her charade for several years by forging financial documents. Sorokin told many of her friends about her desire to create a $40 million (£29m) members-only arts centre, and attempted to persuade a hedge fund into giving her a $22 million (£16m) loan to achieve it. While she failed in this particular bid, Sorokin did get one bank to give her a $100,000 (£72k) overdraft. However, even though her fake-it-until-you-make-it approach had been working, her lies soon began to catch up with her and in July 2017 she was arrested over two unpaid hotel bills and a restaurant tab. The wannabe socialite was then arrested again four months later. Click or scroll on to find out how her story became infamous across the world.

The story started to receive international attention in 2018 when writer Jessica Pressler wrote a feature for New York Magazine about Anna Sorokin's extravagant life and lies as Anna Delvey. Interest was stoked even further due to Sorokin's courtroom antics, as she hired a stylist and once refused to appear because she was unhappy with her outfit. Sorokin was finally jailed in May 2019 for a maximum of 12 years. She declined a plea deal. On 12 February Sorokin was released from prison early for good behaviour, after serving just under two years. But her story is not over yet. Click or scroll on to find out what she's doing to try to capitalise on her infamy.

The tale of the phony heiress is being turned into a Netflix series produced by Shonda Rhimes, while HBO had previously said it was going to create a show based on the story too. Sorokin reportedly received a $320,000 (£230k) fee from Netflix. However, due to a New York law that stops criminals profiting from their criminality, her accounts were frozen and the money was used to pay back those she conned first, as well as paying off fines, and attorney fees. It's thought that at least $170,000 (£122k) was used to pay back banks.

And what about Anna Delvey? Well, it looks as if we haven't quite heard the last of her, as Sorokin has been posting from her old @theannadelvey Instagram account after her release, including an image of her in bed captioned "Prison is so exhausting, you wouldn't know", and has even launched several websites including DelveyMail.com where it appears she plans to sell clothing, and a blog called Anna Delvey Diaries. She is also reportedly writing a book and making her own film. Her legal team is working on an appeal, but Sorokin is likely to be deported back to Germany, although she has indicated she will try to remain in the US.

Anna Sorokin isn't the first to hit the headlines for living the high life on a lie. From a rumoured Russian grand duchess to a man who faked his death in a canoe, click or scroll through to discover some other people who scammed their way to a life of luxury...

French confidence trickster Christophe Rocancourt, pictured here with supermodel Naomi Campbell at Cannes in 2008, reportedly made at least $40 million (£31m) by ripping off the rich and famous. He is perhaps best known for his US scams in the 1990s, when he posed as everything from a French member of the Rockefeller family to a movie producer. Rocancourt also lived off actor Mickey Rourke, fathered a son with a Playboy model, and talked Jean-Claude van Damme into producing a non-existent film.

But the truth caught up with Rocancourt in 2001, when he was arrested in Canada after skipping bail in New York over an unpaid hotel bill. The Frenchman, then posing as a racecar driver, admitted cheating a businessman out of $100,000 (£68k) and served a year in a Canadian jail before being extradited to the US. Then in 2003, Rocancourt – who also once claimed to be the son of Sophia Loren – was jailed for nearly four years after pleading to US federal fraud charges.

Rocancourt became famous as the "con man of the stars" and even wrote about his life as a scammer in a series of books, including one called I, Christopher Rocancourt, Orphan, Playboy, Prisoner, which is set to be adapted into a film, according to French reports. And his life back in France, where he went after being released in the US, is no less colourful. His name has since popped up in a relation to a series of scandals including a dispute with a film director, a fake document probe and a heist on a French police HQ.

Con man extraordinaire Frank William Abagnale Jr started posing as a Pan Am airline pilot at the age of just 16, clocking up over a million miles on more than 250 flights to some 26 countries. Over the next few years, he went on to impersonate a doctor and a lawyer, although it is worth noting that the second position wasn't entirely fake – he did pass a bar exam. He also became a master at forging cheques.

Abagnale was finally caught in France in 1969, aged just 21. He served six months in a French jail and another six in Sweden before being extradited to the US. Here he was sentenced to another 12 years in a federal jail before being paroled after five years – despite two escape attempts. This was on the condition that Abagnale would help federal authorities identify cheque forgers.

Abagnale eventually managed to use his skills as a con man to forge a legitimate career as a security consultant, advising banks and businesses on how to avoid fraud. His story was immortalised in a book called Catch Me If You Can, which was turned into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo di Caprio as Abagnale during his years as a Pan Am pilot, both pictured here with the man himself.

Miami fraudster Anthony Gignac went by the name Prince Khalid al-Saud of Saudi Arabia for over three decades, swindling people out of $8 million (£6.2m) by posing as Middle Eastern royalty. He documented his life of luxury on Instagram, under the moniker @princedubai_07 – showing off fast cars, expensive watches and bottles of champagne. Gignac referred to himself as "sultan", "prince" and "his royal highness" and lived in Miami's exclusive Fisher Island.

Gignac used his fake royal persona to convince people to invest in non-existant ventures around the world but in 2017 his scam began to unravel, in part after he was spotted eating pork and bacon – which would normally be a no-go for any Muslim prince. It turned out he was actually born in Colombia before being adopted by a family in the US state of Michigan, and started impersonating a Saudi royal when he was just 17.

In May, Gignac was sentenced by Florida to 18 years and eight months in prison after admitting wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and impersonating a diplomat in 2019. US Attorney Fajardo Orshan said Gignac had sold "false hope" to dozens of unsuspecting investors. Gignac took full responsibility for the operation at his sentencing, but insisted: "I am not a monster." In September 2019, a court ruled that the fake sultan must pay back his victims $7 million (£5.4m).

Canadian clairvoyant Cassie Chadwick scammed several US banks and businessmen out of over $2 million, or about $56 million (£44m) in today's money, by claiming she was the illegitimate daughter of industrialist tycoon Andrew Carnegie. Born as Elizabeth Bigley in 1857, at a young age she had cards printed saying "Miss Bigley, heiress to $15,000" and claimed a foreign uncle had left her lots of money. She was later tried for forgery and acquitted on the grounds of insanity.

She moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and went on to set-up and run a scam fortune-telling business as Madame Lydia DeVere and swindled two unsuspecting husbands. In 1890, she was sentenced in Toledo, Ohio, to nine years in jail for forgery, but was paroled three years into her sentence. Chadwick returned to Cleveland and married wealthy physician Dr Leroy S. Chadwick and the couple lived together on the "Millionaire's Row" that was the city's Euclid Avenue, pictured.

Chadwick committed her most ambitious con in 1903, when she got her husband's associate, banker Iri Reynolds, to sign a receipt stating that her securities contained a note for $5 million and a trust agreement of $7.5 million, signed by Carnegie. On the back of this, Chadwick was able to borrow millions. But a year later, she was sued over a loan and her promissory notes were shown to be fakes. She was sentenced over conspiracy to misapply bank funds and died in jail two years later.

Carlos Kaiser was one of the most famous footballers in Brazil for more than two decades, despite the fact he didn't actually want to play football. Born Carlos Henrique Raposo, pictured left, he went by the nickname of "Kaiser" due to his admiration for German footballer Franz Beckenbauer. But even though he made some of Brazil's most important teams, and was hired out to Mexico and Argentina and spent several years in Europe, fans hardly ever saw him on the pitch.

Kaiser was attracted to the footballing lifestyle and saw it as a way of escaping poverty in Rio de Janiero. Having started out playing football in Mexico, he returned to Brazil and became friends with many top footballers. In addition to enabling him to live the highlife, this reportedly also helped him with recommendations when he moved between clubs – all nine of them. He'd also convince journalists to build up his hype and make extraordinary boasts about his football prowess to club execs.

But Kaiser continued to avoid actually playing the game like the plague. He mainly got out of playing football by simulating injuries or by saying his grandmother had died, an excuse he used on more than one occasion. He once told The Sun: "Clubs screw so many people over, that someone had to trick them. They couldn’t fire me. All the teams I joined celebrated twice – when I signed and then when I left." His life story was later told in a book and the film Kaiser!.

Canoeist John Darwin and his wife Anne became famous after coming up with an elaborate ruse to get out of financial difficulty by faking his death off the north-east coast of England. In 2002, Darwin paddled out to sea and faked a canoeing accident so his grieving wife could claim $280,000 (£217k) in life insurance payments. After a while, they would start a new life in Panama, leaving their two grown-up sons to mourn their dead father while he hid in a bedsit next door to Anne.

The Darwins' ruse worked for four years and the couple moved to Panama, with John using a passport in a dead baby's name. He then decided to return to the UK after a change in the Panamanian visa laws, walking into a British police station claiming he had amnesia and didn't remember a thing about the previous few years. But the scam was rumbled when a time-stamped photo of him in a Panama estate agents was found online.

Darwin was arrested, charged and eventually jailed for six years and three months after admitting fraud, as well as falsely obtaining a passport. Anne also returned to the UK and was sentenced to 6.5 years in jail on charges of fraud and money laundering. The couple served about half their sentences and later divorced. Darwin reportedly lives in the Philippines with his second wife, while Anne, who is reconciled with her sons, lives in Yorkshire. 

The world's wealthiest scammers who were brought to justice

For two years from late 2015, an impersonator, or impersonators, scammed about €80 million ($89m/£67m) from wealthy individuals by pretending to be the real French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, pictured. Whoever was behind the scam is thought to have used a silicone mask to impersonate Mr Le Drian, who is now France's foreign minister.

Victims of the scam thought they were being contacted by the real Mr Le Drian to help pay ransoms for journalists held in the Middle East. As France doesn't pay ransoms, the scammers asked for funds to go into an untraceable Chinese account. It has not been fully explained why they chose to impersonate Mr Le Drian, although it may be because, as defence minister, he was involved in securing the release of hostages such as Serge Lazarevic, who he is pictured with here.

While some clocked on to the scam before it was too late, others weren't so lucky. Philanthropist and royal Aga Khan IV (pictured here with Queen Elizabeth II) lost as much as €18 million ($19.9m/£15.4m), while over €40 million ($44.3m/£34.2m) was handed over by an unnamed Turkish businessman. Two French-Israeli men, Gilbert Chikliand Anthony Lasarevitsch, were the masterminds of the scam and after being extradited from Ukraine they received sentences of 11 and 7 years respectively in March 2020. Between them they were also fined €3 million ($3.6m/£2.6m). Five other accomplices faced lesser charges.

The world's most notorious counterfeiters who made a fortune

Edward Putman's scam went undetected for years, until authorities became suspicious because the British builder and convicted rapist hadn't declared a lottery win while he had been receiving benefits. However, it was only after the con man was convicted for benefit fraud that the actual fraud finally came to light: Putman had claimed a £2.5 million ($3.3m) jackpot by cashing in a fake lottery ticket.

Putman claimed he had found the winning ticket under a seat in his van in 2009 and cashed it in just before the deadline. However, he conspired with a lottery insider Giles Knibbs, who worked for Camelot in the fraud detection department and knew how to cheat the system. Putman paid Knibbs, who later confessed the fraud and died by suicide, a meagre £330,000 ($435k) for his part in the scam.

After his win, con man Putman bought two sports cars as well as a house and surrounding land in Hertfordshire, living a millionaire lifestyle while continuing applying for benefits and income support. The criminal faced trial in 2019 and was convicted to nine years behind bars over the lottery fraud in October of that year.

For a whole year fraudster Mark Acklom posed as a Swiss banker and MI6 spy to get his then-girlfriend Carolyn Woods to lend him her life savings to renovate several properties he owned. After promising to marry her and pocketing £300,000 ($350.4k) he disappeared, leaving his fiancé without any money. On the run, the con man changed his name several times, to Marc Ros Rodriguez, George Kennedy and Zac Moss, and soon became one of the most wanted fugitives in the UK.

But this wasn't the first time Acklom had committed serious fraud. The notorious swindler had been jailed twice – the first time when he was only 18. At the start of his criminal career, Acklom stole his father's credit card and posed as a stockbroker to commit fraud. He splashed the money on a mortgage for a house and hiring private jets, much to the shock of his parents, who are pictured here in 1991.

Five years after he had left fiancé Carolyn penniless, Acklom was spotted in Switzerland. He was finally arrested in a luxury apartment in Zurich in 2018, where he had been living under false name. The con man was married to Maria Yolanda Ros Rodriguez, who was also using aliases, and together the couple had two daughters. The fraudster was extradited to the UK, where he faced trial in the summer of 2019 and pleaded guilty to swindling his ex-girlfriend out of £300,000 ($350.4k). The judge described his scam as "cruel and cynical". He was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison.

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