A Ukrainian woman posing as a member of the Rothschild banking family has been outed as a fraud after she allegedly infiltrated former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, according to reports.
Inna Yashchyshyn, 33, lied to ritzy resort members that she was the heiress to the reputed family’s mass fortune, Anna de Rothschild, according to a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
She appeared at numerous Mar-a-Lago functions mingling with the likes of Trump, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and others while she held the position as president of United Hearts of Mercy, founded by Florida-based Russian oligarch and former business partner Valery Tarasenko in Canada in 2015, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
After hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the foundation, processor Stripe Inc., suspected fraud and halted the funds for the campaign which was supposed to help families devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yashchyshyn, 33, is now the subject of several federal investigations after it was revealed she is not in fact a member of the Rothschild family. She’s additionally under investigation by Canadian authorities for alleged financial crimes.
In actuality, Yashchyshyn is the Russian-speaking daughter of an Illinois truck driver. It’s unclear when she came to the US.
She allegedly made several trips to the ex-president’s Florida estate with her fake identity to make connections with some of the nation’s biggest leaders, according to the paper.
Federal records obtained by the Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project showed Yashchyshyn had two fake passports from the US and Canada with the name “Anna de Rothschild.” A Florida driver’s license in her name listed a $13 million Miami Beach Mansion where she never lived.
Yashchyshyn formerly worked in a suburban Miami business connecting pregnant Russian women to Americans looking to adopt a child, the Post-Gazette reported.
However, her web of lies unfolded amid a legal dispute she had with her former associate, Tarasenko
According to Tarasenko, a 44-year-old businessman raised in Moscow, she made multiple trips to Mar-a-Lago in an effort to make contacts and create new streams of business.
Photos from 2021 show the brunette hanging out with Trump, Graham and others, according to the reports.
“It wasn’t just dropping the family name. She talked about vineyards and family estates and growing up in Monaco,” John LeFevre, a former investment banker and author, told OCCRP.
She used “her fake identity as Anna de Rothschild to gain access to and build relationships with U.S. politician[s], including but not limited to Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and [former Missouri Gov.] Eric Greitens,” Tarasenko said, according to an affidavit obtained by the Post-Gazette.
She said under oath that she has never used another name and has not broken any laws. She told the Post-Gazette that she had never heard of Anna de Rothschild.
“It was the near-perfect ruse and she played the part,” LeFevre told the paper, recalling the woman’s appearances at the club.
Yashchyshyn claims Tarasenko used her for his own gains and was abusive towards her. She claimed any false identifications using the Rothschild name had been fabricated by Tarasenko.
“Over time, Tarasenko became more controlling and aggressive over me,” she said in an affidavit, obtained by the Post-Gazette.
It’s unclear when Yashchyshyn came to the US and began using the name Anna de Rothschild, OCCRP reported.
An ex-husband of Yashchyshyn, Sergey Golubev, told the newspaper the two wed in 2011 so she could obtain US residency and remain in the country.
Golubev, a Russian-born US citizen, was interviewed by the FBI, according to the Post-Gazette.
“At some point, she needed a permanent green card,” said Golubev, 48, who has not spoken to Yashchyshyn since they split in 2016, according to the newspaper.
The Post-Gazette reports they have seen copies of her fake US and Canadian passports in the name of Anna de Rothschild with Yashchyshyn’s photograph, however, has denied she created them.
The alleged infiltration is one of several instances of security issues at Mar-a-Lago in recent years.
In January 2020, a woman was charged with blowing through security checkpoints after leading cops on a high-speed chase, though she was later found not guilty by reason of insanity. Months later, three teens inadvertently trespassed on Trump’s estate while they carried an AK-47 in an attempt to evade authorities, police said at the time.
And in December 2019, a Chinese woman sparked a security scare on the property after she allegedly returned to Mar-a-Lago after she was kicked out. She was later found not guilty of trespassing, but was convicted of resisting an officer without violence.
