The man known as ‘The Tinder Swindler’ has officially been banned from Tinder.
Shimon Hayut conned millions from women he met through the dating app by posing as billionaire playboy Simon Leviev.
Three of his victims – Cecilie Fjellhoy, Ayleen Charlotte and Pernilla Sjoholm – shared their extraordinary and often terrifying experiences with Shimon in a new Netflix documentary.
When the film was released on Wednesday last week, it reported that Shimon was still active on Tinder.
The dating app told Variety in a statement on Friday: “We have conducted internal investigations and can confirm Simon Leviev is no longer active on Tinder under any of his known aliases.”
Shimon also deleted his Instagram account last week, days after the release of the Netflix documentary.
Taking to his IG Stories hours before his account disappeared, the fraudster wrote: “I will share my side of the story in the next few days when I have sorted out the best and most respectful way to tell it, both to the involved parties and myself. Until then, please keep an open mind and heart.”
According to the Times of Israel, Shimon fled Israel in 2017 to avoid facing trial for fraud-related charges.
After travelling to Europe, he posed as Simon Leviev, the son of Russian-Israeli diamond mogul Leviev.
The fraudster essentially ran a Ponzi scheme by wooing women he met on Tinder with lavish gifts and trips, which he paid for with money he’d stolen from previous women.
After dazzling each victim enough, ‘Simon’ would ask to borrow money from them because for security reasons he couldn’t use his own money, but promised to pay them back.
He would then start the cycle all over again with a different woman, stealing an estimated $10 million over the years.
The Tinder Swindler revealed how Shimon’s victims eventually teamed up to get him arrested for his crimes.
He was sentenced to 15 months in prison, but was released after just five months, and went back to living a lavish lifestyle.
The Tinder Swindler is on Netflix now.
