The world of online dating can either be amazing or real torture, since although you can find the love of your life or a good person to hang out with, you can also be part of horror stories like the ones lived the women who denounced through the documentary, ‘The Tinder Swindler’, in which they recall how they were deceived by Simon Leviev, or rather, Shimon Yehuda Hayut.
According to Netflix’s ‘The Tinder Swindler’, a simple match turned into a real nightmare for Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjoholmy, and Ayleen Charlotte, who were seduced by Leviev’s charms.
He presented himself as a millionaire who led a life full of luxuries and eccentricities but eventually, he had some troubles and deceived women to lent him large amounts of money that left them heavily indebted.
The story that is going around the world is based on the report made by the Norwegian newspaper VG that was published in February 2019 and which included the WhatsApp conversations between the scammer and his victims.
After giving us an hour and a half of an interesting story that ends in sweet revenge by one of the women who sold several of her luxury brand clothes online, one of the big questions that the documentary does is, who is really Simon Leviev?
After “The Tinder Swindler” became a trend, it came to the eyes of the protagonist himself, who before closing his official Instagram account, assured that very soon he would give his version of what happened in the dating app.
Who is Simon Leviev?
Simon Leviev is an Israeli con man convicted of theft, forgery, and fraud. According to The Times of Israel, his real name is Shimon Yehuda Hayu, he was born in Tel Aviv in 1990 and belongs to an Orthodox Jewish family. He allegedly swindled victims across the European continent using a Ponzi scheme.
In 2011 he was accused of cashing checks from people he had worked for, but before he was caught he fled to Europe. In 2015 he was caught in Finland after being accused by three women he swindled. At that time, he was sentenced to three years in prison, but in 2017 he returned to Israel, and there he legally changed his name to Simon Leviev to continue his frauds in several European countries.
The way he operated was to approach women through dating apps, making them fall in love and telling her that he was a billionaire businessman who worked hard traveling the world doing business for his diamond company, which supposedly belonged to his father.
The life that was invented was very real because on his social networks he showed his luxuries that included luxury clothes and cars, trips, food from the best restaurants in the world, and even private jets. He did all this accompanied by his bodyguard and partner.
According to the story, once Leviev established a sentimental relationship or friendship with the women, he told them that he was in danger due to his millionaire businesses and not only asked them to borrow money but also managed to get them to take out a credit card. on your behalf to help you.
It was Cecilie Fjellhøy who, with a broken heart, decided to expose it after realizing the reality.
In 2019, the man landed in Athens, Greece, and there he was captured and extradited to Israel, where he was sentenced to 15 months in prison and forced to pay a fine of approximately $50,000 for his victims. Unfortunately, after five months he was released.
Where is Simon Leviev currently?
In an interview for Israeli channel 12, Leviev assured that he never stole a single dollar from those women, but when the documentary gained momentum he closed his Instagram account and disappeared from the face of the earth again.
“I never took a dollar out of them; these women had fun in my company, traveled and saw the world with my money,” he said.
Currently, Simon Leviev, or rather Shimon Yehuda Hayut, is said to be free in Israel, but he still has fraud proceedings against him in various countries such as the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom.