Original subtitles

NARRATOR: By the time Anna Delvey made New York

her full-time home, she had mastered the art

of creating the illusion of money.

PALMER: She gets small amounts of loans from banks.

She has a little bit of cash, and then she can make that

look like a lot.

- Anna deposited a number of checks

into banks, and then took advantage of the float.

Deposit a check for $5,000, and the bank will say,

"Okay, I'm gonna give you $1,000 today."

The banks were not sophisticated enough to figure it out.

NARRATOR: But check fraud was just the beginning.

Anna had her sights set higher.

- She stays at the Parker Meridian, she stays at

the Mercer; 400, 500, $600 a night.

SPODEK: 11 Howard, $500 a night.

- You can put everything on credit.

She learned how to work the hotel system

If you could dodge the bill one time,

you might be able to dodge everything.

- She ultimately spent

approximately $40,000 living it up.

NARRATOR: Despite the facade,

there was one thing Anna truly believed in:

the Anna Delvey Foundation,

an upscale arts club that would bring in millions.

Her first step was creating a glossy promotional deck

to attract investors.

- She lived and breathed this foundation.

[upbeat music plays]

SPODEK: Anna had an idea

for a foundation based around

a world-class art collection.

PALMER: A high-end

arts club with rotating exhibits.

SPODEK: It'd have a restaurant, it'd have a bar.

It'd have other cultural events,

similar to the Solo House,

but a more art-centric place.

SHAMSIAN: She hired a graphic designer, he sends

invoices, she promises payment's coming.

- And, of course, that Anna was not able to pay.

For her

business plan to actually work,

she not only needed the right people,

but they needed to be invested in her and her vision.

NARRATOR: After just six months,

Anna had launched herself to the top of New York's network

of elite entrepreneurs, convincing them each

to play a role in her foundation.

- Everything Anna did, she blazed with confidence.

100%, all the time.

- She gets connected with

André Balazs, the hotelier of The Mercer in New York.

SPOKEK: She was

meeting with

Richie Notar, from Nobu.

Gabriel Calatrava.

His family did the oculus at World Trade Center.

PALMER: She has enough interactions

that when she goes to Calatrava and says,

"I have been speaking with André,"

he goes, "Oh, well, then all right."

You know, "This is legitimate."

NARRATOR: Anna had assembled an elite army

to build her foundation.

In her mind, Calatrava would design the facility,

Balazs would build it and Notar

would create a world-class restaurant.

Now all she needed was the money.

♪ Check 'em, you can take it to the bank... ♪

♪

PALMER: July 4, 2016,

she meets a man who works for Citibank.

She talks up this wonderful plan

of the Anna Delvey Foundation, and he is hooked.

Immediately, she is trying to get a loan.

- She was trying to get $25 million of loans.

- She creates fake bank statements.

NARRATOR: Anna is hooked up

with a Citibank business account.

From there, she goes to City National Bank

for the big bucks.

- City National Bank had reservations about loaning her

$20 to 25 million.

Once City National Bank decided

they were not gonna be able to fund the loan,

she approached Fortress Bank.

She had false trust documents,

tax documents, bank records.

Fortress was smart enough

to say, "We need some due diligence money.

"We need some money

to do our investigation of you, your finances,"

so Anna had reached out to the banker

from City National Bank and said,

"Listen, I'm jammed up, I'm trying to get this loan,

"perhaps you could help me, I just need $100,000

to cover this cost," and City National Bank,

they extended her $100,000

line of credit, essentially,

based on false documents.

They just gave it to her.

- Their background check comes back.

- Fortress said, "You know what? This may not be

the right loan product for us,"

and they declined to fund the loan.

- Anna Delvey built her persona off of

the high-flying names

that she used constantly.

But the people that she was closest to,

they were smaller people. They were people like

Rachel Williams, who she had met in 2016.

HAWK: Rachel was a producer

with Vanity Fair magazine.

She worked with some high-profile photographers.

- They started to spend a lot of time together.

Rachel would come over to 11 Howard, would eat with her

at Le Coucou, and a meal could easily be five,

six hundred dollars, and they were drinking

a lot of wine and

would spend money all over the place. And they both

lived this, uh, fabulous New York life.

NARRATOR: For Rachel, Anna offered a friendship

and a lifestyle she never experienced.

And in exchange, Anna finally had a real friend.

- Anna has this idea.

- She ropes Rachel

and a videographer into going on a trip to Marrakesh.

NARRATOR: Their trip would be unforgettable,

but for all the wrong reasons.