Editor’s Note
This report details a new legal challenge facing Shimon Hayut, as the family he claims to be a part of seeks to recover alleged illicit gains obtained through deception.
Shimon Hayut faces a new legal challenge: The family he claims to be a part of is now pursuing his alleged illicit gains, accusing him of receiving numerous benefits (including material ones) through cunning and false words.
The man who allegedly swindled dozens of women out of an estimated $10 million by posing as the son of Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev faces a new legal challenge: The family he claims to be a part of is now pursuing his alleged illicit gains.
According to reports, in a lawsuit filed in Tel Aviv and seen by NBC News, the real Levievs accuse Hayut of “receiving numerous benefits (including material ones), astutely and using false words, and claiming to be a member of the Leviev family.”
Meanwhile, it is the family that “will pay and bear the costs of his benefits,” alleges the lawsuit.
They have a lot at stake: Forbes last estimated Leviev’s fortune to be just under $1 billion in 2020, thanks in part to patriarch Lev Leviev’s close connections with figures like former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, which helped him acquire gems, seize mines, and undermine De Beers’ dominance in the diamond market.
Simon Leviev, whose real name is Shimon Hayut, previously served 5 months of a 15-month sentence in Israel on unrelated fraud charges (he was reportedly released early in 2020 for good behavior).
But in early February, the exposure of his latest scams in the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler” did not stop him from flaunting his extravagant lifestyle on Instagram (he has since deactivated his profile, after being banned from using Tinder and other social media).
Shimon Hayut relied on his own shadowy network to carry out his heist, and the Leviev lawsuit will attempt to shed light on its members.
The Leviev lawyer told Good Morning America that “any money recovered will go to Simon’s alleged victims.”
In a recent video, Hayut denied the charges against him and claimed that
