The Tinder Swindler
Tinder詐欺師：恋愛は大金を生む
Discussed in the Journal
JournalReady to Date Is Not the Same as Ready to Be ChosenStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
Three women defrauded by a man posing as a diamond heir; the documentary about why the con worked.
The Tinder Swindler tells how a man calling himself Simon Leviev paid for a life of private jets, through three of the women he deceived. In January 2018 Cecilie Fjellhøy, a 29-year-old Norwegian student in London who calls herself a Tinder expert, matches with Simon, who presents himself as the son of the Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev. Their first date, coffee at the Four Seasons, ends on his jet to Sofia. He courts her with roses, voice notes and a surprise visit to Oslo, and asks her to find them a London flat. Three months in, he sends pictures of himself and his bodyguard covered in blood: his enemies are tracking his cards, and he needs money. She takes out loan after loan until she owes about $250,000. The cheque he sends to repay her bounces.
Pernilla Sjöholm, a Swede, met him on Tinder that spring and became his friend, not his lover, travelling Europe with him; she lent him about $45,000. When Cecilie calls American Express about her debts, the authorities ask for a photograph of her boyfriend. Deeply depressed, she goes home to Oslo for treatment and takes her story to the Norwegian newspaper VG, whose 2019 investigation shows that Simon is Shimon Hayut, a convicted fraudster who used each woman's money to dazzle the next. Simon, who declined an interview, is heard only in his own recordings, denying everything. Ayleen Charlotte, his girlfriend in Amsterdam, who had given him about $140,000, turns the tables and sells his designer clothes. Partly thanks to the three women, he is arrested in Greece in 2019 on a forged passport, sent to Israel, sentenced to 15 months on old fraud charges and freed after five. The women are left with the debts. At the end Cecilie is still on the app, and searching Simon's name brings up page after page about his lies.
Starring
Cecilie FjellhøyHerself
A Norwegian student in London who fell for 'Simon' on Tinder, borrowed about $250,000 for him, then helped expose him.
Pernilla SjöholmHerself
A Swedish woman who became his friend rather than his girlfriend, travelled Europe with him and lent him about $45,000.
Ayleen CharlotteHerself
His girlfriend in Amsterdam, who gave him about $140,000 and, once she knew the truth, turned the tables on him.
Natalie Remøe HansenHerself
A journalist at the Norwegian newspaper VG and one of the reporters behind its 2019 investigation, 'The Tinder Swindler'.
Kristoffer KumarHimself
A VG journalist on the same investigation, which traced Hayut's false identities and his victims across Europe.
Erlend Ofte ArntsenHimself
The third VG reporter on the team, which says it mapped at least thirteen cases of fraud.
Why it matters
The Tinder Swindler is often watched as a thriller, but its subject is how a con works on people who are not foolish. The women did what anyone is told to do: they searched his name, looked at his pictures, met him in public. What they could not check was the story he built around them over months, of danger and devotion, and the film shows affection turning into debt one urgent message at a time. It also shows what came after: strangers calling them gold-diggers once the story broke, and courts and banks treating them as borrowers rather than victims of what the director has called coercive control. It became the first documentary to top Netflix's weekly film chart. Its closing image is a small point about justice online: where the law did little, the women made sure that searching his name now tells the truth.