Tinder Swindler banned from online dating app; find out how he preyed on women

The man behind multiple Tinder scams, and the Netflix documentary, the Tinder Swindler also known as Simon Leviev, has finally been banned from the online dating app. The recently released Netflix documentary told the tale of this dangerous conman who scammed multiple women for a total sum of Rs. 75 Cr after lavishing love and a lavish lifestyle on them. The Israel-born man would pretend to be a rich businessman to fool innocent women into his love trap. Once they fell for his fraud, he would scam money out of them and then disappear.

It was reported that even after the release of the documentary, Leviev, whose real name is Shimon Yehuda Hayut, was still active on the Tinder. Now finally, Tinder has confirmed that the infamous scammer has been removed from the dating app. In a statement given to Variety, Tinder said, “We have conducted internal investigations and can confirm Simon Leviev is no longer active on Tinder under any of his known aliases”.

The Tinder Swindler story

Shimon Yehuda Hayut was born in Israel but later moved to the U.S. and started off with petty crimes like cheque frauds. Later, he legally changed his name to Simon Leviev in order to pretend that he was related to Lev Avnerovich Leviev, famous Israeli businessman who is also known as ‘The king of diamonds’. On multiple occasions, Leviev has referred to himself as ‘The prince of diamonds’ in order to fool the victims. The Tinder Swindler soon moved to Europe and started scamming women using the online dating app.

Leviev would pretend to be a rich businessman and take women he connected to on Tinder on fancy, and very expensive, dates to lure them. After becoming their lover, he would usually fabricate a series of lies telling them that his life is in danger and ask them for money as his own credit cards would reveal his whereabouts. All this while he would promise the women that once it is over he would come back and they will stay happily together.

The 114 minute documentary Tinder Swindler is a narrative of his scams and tells the story of how he ended up scamming so many women. The documentary is directed by Felicity Morris, known for the acclaimed Netflix series ‘Don’t F*** with Cats’. The documentary also features three of the victims of Leviev.

Leviev also had an Instagram account with more than 2,00,000 followers. On February 4, Leviev posted a story where he claimed that he was preparing to tell his side of the story. However, the account can no longer be found on Instagram. Whether it has been deactivated by Leviev or banned by the platform is difficult to tell.

Tinder love lesson

The lesson in it for all men and women on Tinder who are looking for love, is that they not take any stranger on his words. Like everything else in life, they should verify, verify and verify again. After all, Tinder is like stepping into darkness- you do that very carefully, testing the ground carefully, step by step.