Editor’s Note
This article examines the mechanics of romance scams through the lens of the notorious “Tinder Swindler” case, highlighting how dating platforms can be exploited for financial fraud.
Ultimately, it was far from glamorous: Shimon Hayut, the fraudster known as the “Tinder Swindler,” during his deportation from Athens in July 2019.
So-called “love scams” are fraud schemes where perpetrators feign a romantic relationship with their victims via dating platforms – only to financially exploit them in the end.
One of the most prominent cases is that of convicted fraudster Shimon Hayut, known as the “Tinder Swindler.”
The German magazine “Der Spiegel” reported on the case in a detailed feature – followed by a true-crime documentary on Netflix in 2022.
Hayut defrauded at least ten women over several years for a total sum in the millions, by posing as the son of a billionaire and a successful diamond dealer.
For years, he reportedly flew around Europe under various identities, stayed in five-star hotels, and spent millions on his extravagant lifestyle. All of this was financed with money from at least ten women known to the public, whom he had found via the dating platform Tinder. To them, he usually presented himself as successful diamond dealer Simon Leviv, founder of the company LLD Diamonds and son of the actually existing self-made billionaire and diamond dealer Lev Leviev.
To make his story credible, the now 31-year-old Hayut lived lavishly and moved confidently through high society, as one of the defrauded women reported to “Der Spiegel.” She said she met him, for example, at the five-star Waldorf Astoria hotel in Berlin, and for the meeting he had hired a fake bodyguard. After the initial acquaintance phase, invitations to extravagant trips followed for her as well as the other women: to the Armani Hotel in Milan, the Hotel Kempinski in Vienna, or the Hotel Shangri-La in Paris. Hayut met the other women while pretending to be on business trips for his gemstone company.
The outings and trips were paid for with money from the other women. Or more precisely: with their credit cards, which he eventually persuaded them to hand over and then took under some pretext. According to “Der Spiegel,” Hayut’s victims eventually noticed the fraud, blocked the cards, and confronted him. However, enormous sums had already been charged by then – and Hayut used threats and intimidation tactics to prevent them from going to the police.
An initial report by the Norwegian newspaper “Verdens Gang” in February 2019 caused problems for him as Simon Leviv and ruined his business. In June 2019, he was arrested by police at Athens airport for traveling with a forged passport – and extradited to Israel. However, he was not charged there for his crimes as the “Tinder Swindler,” but for eight offenses from the years 2010 and 2011, writes “Der Spiegel.”
Contrary to his fairy-tale story as Simon Leviv, Hayut does not come from a wealthy family. His father worked as a rabbi for an Israeli airline, and the son grew up in a small apartment in Tel Aviv. In 2011, at age 20, he was a gardener for a wealthy family and stole their checkbook. He bought himself, for example, a Porsche or flying lessons, but was quickly caught and fled to Finland before the trial. There, he posed as arms dealer Mordechay Tapiro and developed his women-fraud scheme. As early as 2016, he was sentenced in Finland to one and a half years in prison for defrauding three women.
After his arrest in Athens, Hayut was sentenced again to 15 months in prison in December 2019 but was released as early as May 2020, as reported, among others, by the “Times of Israel.” For his deeds as the “Tinder Swindler,” he would not face legal consequences for the time being, “Der Spiegel” wrote in early 2020. For financial investigators, the number of victims and the money flows were difficult to track – and ultimately too small compared to tax and economic crimes.