THE TINDER SWINDLER

WOMEN AROUND THE WORLD HAVE LOST EVERYTHING TO A MAN THEY THOUGHT WAS THEIR PRINCE CHARMING

- Emma Levett

Cecilie Fjellhøy had been using the dating app Tinder for years. She’d had some fun with it, and after moving to London and meeting Simon Leviev on it in January 2018, she had no reason to expect anything less than more fun.

Especially when their first date involved drinks at the fancy five-star Four Seasons Hotel, followed by a spontaneous trip to Bulgaria on Simon’s private jet.

He claimed he was the billionaire heir to an Israeli diamond fortune. And as 29year-old Cecilie got to know him, his lifestyle of designer clothes, fast cars and luxury travel seemingly checked out. He lavished her with expensive gifts and the pair started to fall in love – or so Cecilie thought.

“Simon has an aura about him, a real confidence,” Cecilie told media. “I had no reason not to believe him.”

What Cecilie didn’t realise was that, like many other women, she was being sucked into an elaborate scam. Simon Leviev, whose real name is Shimon Hayut, was a fraud. He is now known as the ‘Tinder Swindler’, after a new Netflix documentary of that name.

Things quickly turned dark for Cecilie, as Hayut confided that a multimillion-dollar business deal was putting him in danger because of his powerful enemies.

He claimed he’d been advised to cancel his credit cards so they couldn’t trace him, and suddenly Cecilie was having to help him out financially.