Ever since the Netflix doc The Tinder Swindler was released last week, people have been asking a big question: Who is the Tinder Swindler? The film examines the stranger-than-fiction story of a wealthy jet-setter who used the dating service to woo women and fleece them out of money. Over the course of two years, he amassed some $10 million from his victims. But again, who is the Tinder Swindler, you may be asking.
The answer to who is the Tinder Swindler is Simon Leviev, real name Shimon Yehuda Hayut, an Israeli-born conman who already had a lengthy rap sheet. In 2011, he was caught cashing checks he’d stolen from family for whom he was babysitting. He wound up charged with various counts of fraud and theft, but he fled the country. Four years later he was arrested in Finland after exploiting a number of women under an assumed name.
Starting in 2017, after serving a shortened sentence, Hayut again assumed a fake name, Simon Leviev, and used Tinder to contact women and trick them into giving him cash and credit cards. He claimed that he was the son of Israeli diamond tycoon Lev Leviev and that his life was in danger. He would then use the money he swindled to lure new victims, effectively operating a Ponzi scheme. He was again jailed in 2019 but only served five months of his 15-month sentence due to the pandemic.
As per Variety, Hayut was only recently banned from the app he used to con people out of money.
The Tinder Swindler now streams on Netflix.