How to SPOT A LOVE SWINDLER

THE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY THE TINDER SWINDLER HAS SHONE A SPOTLIGHT ON THE PHENOMENON OF ONLINE ROMANCE SCAMS. HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF FROM BEING CONNED.

- ROBYN MACLARTY

Even if you haven't yet watched The Tinder Swindler, you've almost certainly heard about it. It's one of the most popular Netflix programmes ever, having racked up 45.8 million viewing hours during its first week of release. The true-crime documentary follows the trail of heartbreak and fraud left by a jet-setting romance con artist through interviews with three women he allegedly duped into giving him about $500 000 (about R7.3 million) a fraction of the $10 million he is estimated to have hustled from people around the globe.

It's easy to dismiss those taken in by romance scam artists as naive, desperate and gullible, yet what's so compelling about this documentary was that the women who shared their tales of heartbreak, humiliation and financial ruin came across as sensible, savvy, sophisticated and successful.

The $10 million dollar question is: how were they duped?

Well, Simon Leviev – the Israelicon man in question, who was named Shimon Hayut until he legally changed his name in 2017 - used a depressingly common tactic among romance scammers known as 'love bombing' in combination with a glamorous, wealthy facade he created by using money he'd conned out of a previous victim to seduce the next.

After painting a picture of himself as heir to Russian-Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev, Simon conned one of his ‘marks', beautiful blonde Norwegian Cecilie, by showering her with attention and affection, before spinning a story involving his 'enemies' in the dangerous diamondmining world. His accounts had been compromised; he needed money. How, in good conscience, could his future wife refuse?

Eventually, Cecilie began to see through her love fog - and the jig, as they say, was up. At this point, Mr Leviev' began to issue threats to keep her from approaching the authorities, and then he stopped communicating with her altogether.