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There’s a new series on Netflix: The Tinder Swindler. By posing online as a wealthy jet-setter and diamond merchant, a con man manages to swoop in on beautiful and smart women and extract millions of dollars. That fraudster is Simon Leviev or Shimon Hayut.
This presents me with a conundrum: why do smart and beautiful women fall for such a scammer? I don’t really understand this. Could it be that women are not so different from men after all? Some say of men that their minds are turned off when they follow their genitals. Would women be like that too?
Find love on Tinder, only to be scammed by your match. It happens to more and more women and men, including the Scandinavian Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte. Their prince in shining armor turns out to be a master cheat and extorted a monster sum.
Under the name Simon Leviev, Hayut poses as the owner of diamond company LLD Diamonds and the son of its founder, Lev Leviev.
Hayut swindles numerous women he met on Tinder for a total of $10 million by pretending his life is in danger from his enemies in the diamond trade. In The Tinder Swindler, three of his victims tell their true stories and how they fell under (fake) Leviev’s spell.
The Tinder Swindler is currently one of the most popular documentaries on Netflix worldwide.
Banned from dating apps since release of Netflix documentary
“We banned Simon Leviev and any of his known aliases as soon as the story of his actions became public in 2019,” a Tinder spokeswoman said. “In the lead up to the release of the documentary, we conducted additional internal investigations and can confirm Simon Leviev is not active on Tinder under any of his known aliases.”
Hayut was also banned from using dating sites and apps under Match Group Inc., including Match.com, Plenty of Fish and OkCupid, she said.
