The Israeli man nicknamed the “Tinder Swindler” will have to meet women the old fashion way if he wants to go on dates in the future.
Accused of stealing millions of dollars from women he met on Tinder in the new Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler, the man known by several aliases including “Simon Leviev” has been permanently banned from using the dating app, a spokesperson for Tinder confirmed in a statement to The Independent on Monday.
“We banned Simon Leviev and any of his known aliases as soon as the story of his actions became public in 2019,” the spokesperson said. “He is permanently banned from Tinder.”
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Under the alias Simon Leviev, the man — whose real name, the documentary reveals, is Shimon Hayut — told women that he was the son of billionaire diamond dealer Lev Leviev and the CEO of LLD Diamonds. The documentary states that the Leviev family has denied any connection to Hayut.
The Tinder Swindler also interviews multiple women, including Norwegian woman Cecilie Fjellhøy and Swedish woman Pernilla Sjoholm, who explain in detail with texts, audio, and video evidence how Hayut convinced them he came from massive wealth by taking them on dates to five-star hotels and flying them in private jets to extravagant vacations. After gaining their trust, he asked them to lend him money — often to the tune of tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars — which he never repaid.
Hayut has denied any wrongdoing. However, according to the Washington Post, he was sentenced to two years in prison in 2015 for defrauding three Finnish women. More recently, as The Tinder Swindler shows, in 2019, Hayut was arrested in Greece thanks to a tip from one of his former girlfriends, Ayleen Charlotte, and extradited back to Israel, where he served five months of a 15-month prison sentence. Today, Hayut is living as a free man. According to Variety, he gained 200,000 Instagram followers after the release of the documentary and said he was planning to tell his side of the story soon — however, his Instagram account has since been taken down.
Here’s hoping he doesn’t try Hinge or Bumble.
Main Image: A still fromThe Tinder Swindler courtesy of Netflix.
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