Two victims of Israeli fraudster Simon Leviev, made famous by the Netflix show “The Tinder Swindler,” told AFP on Tuesday that they were glad to learn of his arrest in Georgia.
Leviev, 34, whose real name is Shimon Yehuda Hayut, rose to notoriety after investigative reports and media coverage exposed a pattern of romance fraud and financial crimes.
He was arrested at Batumi airport “at Interpol’s request,” Georgian officials said Monday.
“I celebrated a bit yesterday. I’m allowed to feel happy because this guy destroyed my life,” Pernilla Sjoholm told AFP in an interview in Stockholm.
“I was shocked because it’s been such a long time,” Norwegian Cecilie Fjellhoy, another one of Leviev’s victims, told AFP in London, adding it was like a “little celebration.”
Between 2017 and 2019, Leviev allegedly used the dating app Tinder to pose as a wealthy heir and trick women into advancing him large sums of money, which he never repaid. The elaborate deception reportedly involved fake luxury lifestyles, bodyguards and private jets, making the scam unusually convincing and costly.
In an interview with Inside Edition after the release of the Netflix documentary, Leviev denied the allegations, saying he was a “legit businessman” and not “this monster that everyone has created.”
His scheme became one of the most notorious examples of “catfishing” — creating a false online persona to lure victims into emotional and financial entanglements.
Fjellhoy said that she was “super relieved” that he had been arrested, even though she was frustrated that it had taken so long.
“I get this sense of calm because I know that I am being protected. I know future victims are being protected, but as well, you’re angry that it had to take this amount of time and the amount of victims that we know have been accumulated,” she said.
Sjoholm, now 38, said she met Leviev on Tinder in March 2018.
They rapidly became friends, and within a few months, he was defrauding her, she said.
In total, she handed over more than 600,000 kronor ($65,000) to him, which he never paid back.
His arrest “is a win,” Sjoholm said. “Thank you to the country that issued the international arrest warrant.”
Sjoholm added that she had bounced back from the dark chapter, describing a “very happy family life.”
“I was so devastated back in 2018, 2019. And to stand here today… and just be so happy… It’s incredible,” she said.
She has since become involved in the fight against financial fraud and advocates for better regulation of the use of artificial intelligence in deepfakes.
“We need to see (fraud) as more than just a money loss. We need to see it as the emotional abuse that these victims live through,” she said, calling for better protection of victims.
Sjoholm said she is ready to testify against Leviev in the event of a trial and has filed police complaints against him in Sweden and the Netherlands.
Hayut served two and a half years in a Finnish prison from 2015 after being found guilty of defrauding three women. He was also sentenced to 15 months in an Israeli prison in 2019 after being convicted of four fraud charges, but was released after five months because of COVID.