Inventing Anna: Identity of fake heiress' rumoured boyfriend in Dubai revealed

The socialite scammer, Anna Sorokin, is back in the spotlight, thanks to the Netflix series created by Shonda Rhimes, Inventing Anna.

Sorokin is still behind bars, but that doesn't mean she has stopped trying to make some easy money.

For the uninitiated, Sorokin — also known as Anna Delvey — is a 31-year-old Russian woman who masqueraded as a wealthy German heiress to scam her way to hundreds of thousands of dollars while living the high life at Manhattan in New York City (NYC).

She is currently in prison in the New York state, awaiting deportation to Russia.

Her incredible story has been dramatised in a new Netflix series Inventing Anna, starring Ozark star and Emmy winner Julia Garner playing Anna.

The gripping crime drama is based on a 2018 article in bi-weekly The New York by Jessica Pressler, who is also one of the producers of the series.

The names of some places and characters have also been changed largely because many people distanced themselves from Sorokin and were reluctant to reveal their identities.

One such character is Sorokin's tech entrepreneur boyfriend, who has been portrayed as Chase Sivorkski in a role essayed by Sameer Usmani in the series.

Sivorkski is introduced as a futurist Ted Talks speaker building an app called Wake, which promises dream storing technology.

The New York article says of the real-life couple: "For about two years, they'd been kind of like a team, showing up in places frequented by the itinerant wealthy, living out of fancy hotels and hosting dinners where the Futurist talked up his app, and Delvey spoke of the private club she wanted to open."

Sorokin and Sivorkski are inseparable in the show.

They enter into a long-term relationship with Sivorkski deluded into believing that Sorokin will inherit €60 (Dh244) million on her 25th birthday.

In the series, Sorokin helps Sivorkski secure a big investment for the app.

Unknown to her, Sivorkski blows away the money to fund their extravagant lifestyle.

The Wake app never sees the light of day.

Then Sorokin exposes Sivorkski, who travels to the UAE to work as a futurist.

Since the series came out, there has been rampant speculation on the real identity of Sivorkski.

Buoyed by the public's fascination with her mystery beau, Sorokin recently announced that she would divulge the name of her real-life boyfriend to the highest bidder, with the auction kicking off at $10,000 (Dh36,730).

"Want to know who the real "Sivorkski" is? The media outlet with the highest bid gets the exclusive. Bid starts at $10K. DM to bid," she posted on Instagram.

Now it looks like the bid is not required.

Cosmopolitan Magazine and New York Post are among many publications that suggest that Sorokin's rumoured boyfriend is 40-year-old South-Korean American businessman Hunter Lee Soik who worked briefly in Dubai.

Much like the show's character, he also worked on an app that could store dreams.

It's just that instead of Wake, it was called Shadow.

In fact, around this time, five years ago, Soik was actively promoting his 'Shadow' app in Dubai.

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At a women's forum in Dubai in February 2016, he told delegates that his Shadow app will feature "a global nightmare hotline that will record untold dreams of users in order to sift through the mysteries of people's grey matter when they are asleep."

"The hotline will help calm nerves following bad dreams," he claimed at the packed event.

Later, he abandoned the Shadow app and went on to pursue other projects.

• UAE