Netflix has long been the place to nurture our true crime obsession, drip-feeding us series and documentaries that linger after the final credits have rolled. It’s been six years since Making a Murderer premiered, and the case of Steven Avery still occupies my thoughts. Now, the streaming giant has dropped a new gem in the form of The Tinder Swindler.
The documentary tells the story of Israeli fraudster Shimon Hayut, who changed his name to Simon Leviev and posed as a billionaire diamond dealer on Tinder, conning women into falling in love with him and showering them with overseas trips and gifts.
Once they’d fallen for his charms, Leviev would hit them up for loans claiming his “enemies” in the diamond game had frozen his accounts.
The Tinder Swindler tells the story of fraudster Shimon Hayut and the women he conned. Credit:Netflix
The con left three women – Cecilie Fjellhoy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte – thousands of dollars in debt and kicked off an international manhunt for “The Tinder Swindler”. But like all tremendous true crime series, the ending often feels like the beginning, and we don’t doubt you’ve got unanswered questions.
So, where is Simon Leviev now?
Simon Leviev doesn’t really exist, but Shimon Hayut is back in Tel Aviv, Israel. In March of last year, Leviev did a TV interview with Israel’s News 13 where he said he was “wronged for things I never did. I always loved the good life; I will not lie.”
He has also managed to rebrand himself as a real estate expert, according to an interview he did in November 2021 with Vents Magazine. In the article, Leviev is described as “a millionaire of repute [who] has played the high stakes in the world of real estate for years.”
How did he get out of prison?
As we learned in the film, Leviev was arrested in Greece by Interpol and the Israel Police and extradited to Israel, where he was tried on outstanding charges of fraud and sentenced to 15 months in prison. The original Tinder Swindler article that the documentary was based on claims Leviev was released after five months because of good behaviour, though other reports have attributed his release to a program aimed at reducing the prison population amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Is he still on Tinder or Instagram?
Not anymore. This week, Tinder announced that they had conducted an investigation into Leviev, and he has now been banned from the dating app.
“We have conducted internal investigations and can confirm Simon Leviev is no longer active on Tinder under any of his known aliases,” Tinder said in a statement to Variety on Friday.
Following the film’s release last week, Simon appeared to be active on Instagram, posting under the handle @simon__leviev__official, a page that boasted 124,000 followers. That account has since been deleted, though several Instagram accounts claiming to be the official page of Simon Leviev have popped up in its place.
Does Leviev have a girlfriend?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Before shutting down his Instagram account, Leviev shared several photos with Kate Konlin, an international model signed to IMG. Last July, Konlin did an interview with Israeli fashion magazine Mako, confirming there was “huge love between us”. Konlin also said, “he showed me documents proving he did nothing wrong.”
However, the most recent update on their relationship came in an article published by Radar this week. The website claimed they had spoken with Konlin via email, and she confirmed that due to their busy work diaries, “they were no longer in a romantic relationship but were still friends.”
What happened to his victims?
The three main victims from the Netflix documentary, Cecilie Fjellhoy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte, have lived with the trauma that comes from crossing paths with Leviev.
Cecilie Fjellhoy took out loans worth thousands to help the man she believed to be her boyfriend.Credit:Netlix
In an interview with GQ, Sjoholm, 35, says she is now bankrupt and living with her mother after losing between £50,000 and £60,000 ($95,000 and $114,000) to Leviev. “It’s still a struggle,” she told GQ. “It was the ultimate betrayal. My friend was out to destroy me.”
Fjellhoy continues to live in London and lists herself on Instagram as a “spokesperson and speaker on fraud” and the founder of a non-profit organisation called Action Reaction foundation. Fjellhoy and Sjoholm appear to have struck up a friendship – the one silver lining of Leviev’s actions. The pair have posted pictures holidaying together in Greece and referring to each other as sisters.
As for Ayleen Charlotte, the revenge queen of eBay, she appears to be lying low with no social media accounts or public comment made since the documentary’s release. Maybe she’s too busy offloading the last of Leviev’s designer gear.
Wait, what about all the other people involved? Like Peter, the bodyguard.
It turns out Peter’s real name is actually Piotr, and he’s not happy about his involvement in the Netflix documentary. According to Polish tabloid Pudelek, Piotr has engaged the services of a lawyer and is seeking damages from Netflix, claiming he had no knowledge of the actions of the “protagonist” of the film, and therefore “cannot be associated with the allegations in any way”.
As for the others, Netflix is releasing a new companion audio miniseries called You Can’t Make This Up. Across three episodes, the podcast will explore elements of Leviev’s life that didn’t make the documentary, including the identity of Peter, his supposed business partner, and the mysterious mother of his child.
The Tinder Swindler is available to watch on Netflix.
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