Swipe, swipe, swipe… It isn’t simple discovering love on-line, however Cecilie Fjellhoy thought she lastly met her prince charming in 2019 when she matched with Simon Leviev, the beguiling scion of an Israeli diamond dynasty.
Fjellhoy, 29 on the time, was a Norwegian graduate scholar residing in London when she was swept off her toes by the self-proclaimed, ‘Prince of Diamonds.’ Leviev, then 28, was a good-looking billionaire playboy who organized a personal airplane to take them to Bulgaria from London on their first date.
‘Once I first talked with Simon, we instantly had a bond,’ says Fjellhoy in an upcoming Netflix doc. ‘It felt like stepping right into a film.’
Although what started as a fairytale romance shortly soured right into a cautionary story within the risks of on-line relationship – one which left Fjellhoy $200,000 in debt and fearing for her security.
In actuality, Simon Leviev was really Shimon Hayut, a convicted conman who served three years in Finnish jail for defrauding a number of girls to be able to fund his lavish life-style of personal jets, quick vehicles and luxurious inns.
He would bathe girls he met on the relationship app with lavish journeys and items, utilizing cash he had taken from different girls. He would then ask for more cash underneath the guise of needing to guard his id as a result of safety issues.
Now these victims share their story in The Tinder Swindler, an absorbing new Netflix documentary from the dream staff behind of The Imposter and Don’t F**okay with Cats.
Premiering on February 2, the characteristic movie guarantees to inform ‘the jaw-dropping story of a prolific conman who posed as a billionaire playboy on Tinder, and the ladies who got down to convey him down.’
Cecilie Fjellhoy was a 29-year previous, Norwegian graduate scholar residing in London when she was swept off her toes by the self-proclaimed, ‘Prince of Diamonds.’ Leviev, then 28, was a good-looking billionaire playboy who organized a personal airplane to take them to Bulgaria from London on their first date. The brand new Netflix doc focuses on three of his victims, Cecilie Fjellhoy, Pernilla Sjoholm and talking for the primary time, Ayleen Koeleman
Simon Leviev was really Shimon Hayut, a convicted conman who beforehand served three years in Finnish jail for defrauding a number of girls to be able to fund his lavish life-style of personal jets, quick vehicles and luxurious inns. The serial rip-off artist used his allure to prey on girls he met by means of on-line relationship apps, incomes him the moniker the ‘Tinder swindler’
Hayut requested Fjellhoy (proper) to open a line of credit score so he may pay his bills underneath her identify to guard himself from his ‘enemies’
Shimon Hayut had been on the run for years when he was lastly arrested in 2019 whereas utilizing a faux passport in Greece. He had been a fugitive of Israel since 2011, wished for fraud, theft and forgery, and skipping out on sentencing twice.
Within the meantime, Hayut hopscotched round Europe, residing lavishly off the financial savings of unsuspecting girls he conned into trusting him.
The serial fraudster did a two 12 months stint in a Finnish jail for swindling three girls in 2015. When he was despatched again to Israel in 2017 to face expenses for his earlier offenses, Hayut fled the nation once more with a brand new assumed id.
By the point he met Cecilie Fjellhoy in January 2018, Hayut was posing as ‘Simon Leviev,’ son of the billionaire Russian-Israeli diamond mogul, Lev Leviev. He claimed to be a high-powered CEO for LDD Diamonds who always traveled for work.
‘He tells me that his dad is the ‘King of Diamonds,’ and which means I am the prince,’ stated Fjellhoy.
To make his claims extra plausible, Hayut legally modified his final identify to Leviev and employed a staff of pretend assistants, enterprise companions and a bodyguard to make his story extra credible.
The fraudster first invited Fjellhoy to satisfy for espresso on the 4 Seasons in London after the pair matched on Tinder. Upon ending their drink, he requested the blonde graduate scholar if she wished to affix him on his non-public jet for a enterprise journey to Bulgaria, leaving that afternoon. Fjellhoy informed Norwegian information web site Verdens Gang that she felt reassured by his ‘staff’ of staff that have been becoming a member of them.
What proceeded subsequent was a whirlwind lengthy distance romance that concerned every day love notes over textual content, movies and voice messages exchanged on Whatsapp.
‘This was the primary time the place I felt like: ‘Oh my god I actually like him. And evidently he actually likes me again as properly,” Fjellhoy stated to Nightline on ABC in 2019.
Among the many extreme love overtures, Hayut despatched clips of himself on non-public jets, driving Ferraris and closeups of his luxurious watches.
‘I by no means felt this manner, should you had informed me I would not even think about it or imagine it,’ he stated in a voice word that Fjellhoy shared with Verdens Gang.
‘I really like you my future spouse,’ he stated in one other.
Cecilie Fjellhoy (left) stated the toughest a part of the ordeal was that she liked ‘Simon Leviev.’ Shimon Hayut (proper) posed as Simon Leviev – the ‘Prince of Diamonds’ – son of the Jewish billionaire diamond mine proprietor Lev Leviev
Funding the jetset life-style for Hayut and his ‘staff’ added up quick. In simply 54 days, the good-looking Israeli imposter racked up $224,220 on Fjellhoy’s American Specific on non-public jets, luxurious inns, Louboutins in Bangkok, Gucci in Barcelona, the Ritz Carlton in Berlin and the Conservatory in Amsterdam. Fjellhoy believed he would repay her, she stated: ‘Should you can afford to take a personal jet to Oslo for an hour, it appears solely logical which you can pay again any cash I lend you’
Together with her Amex maxed out, Fjellhoy opened ten extra strains of credit score to proceed paying for her crook-boyfriend. She took out a mortgage to repay her bank cards, however the cash Hayut promised to repay wasn’t coming in
In June 2019, Hayut was arrested in Greece following a joint operation between Interpol and Israeli police. Israeli authorities requested his extradition to his residence nation, the place he had been wished on expenses of theft, forgery and fraud since 2011
From early on, Hayut hinted on the inherent hazard in being concerned within the diamond business, and claimed that he could not go to Fjellhoy in London due to threats he was receiving from enigmatic enemies.
He even went so far as sending pictures of himself and his bodyguard within the hospital, after alleging they have been ‘attacked.’
Fjellhoy fell for it, hook, line and sinker. 4 weeks into their courtship, the conman requested her to take out an enormous line of credit score for him, explaining that it was a precautionary safety measure to keep away from leaving a paper path in his identify.
As per his directions, she stuffed out an software for an American Specific Platinum Card and he informed her to file an earnings of $200,000, assuring her that no person would examine it.
‘It felt good to have the ability to give it to him and say, ‘This is my bank card. I managed it,’ stated Fjellhoy to the Norwegian information outlet.
The fraudster spent the cash on airplane tickets, inns and dinners that have been booked underneath her identify to throw off suspicious ‘enemies’.
‘One of many most important explanation why he wanted it was safety…he wanted my identify as a canopy, he stated,’ Fjellhoy informed Nightline in 2019. ‘I do know it sounds loopy…[but] why would he have this big man with him if he did not want the safety?,’ she stated, apparently referring to a bodyguard.
Funding the jetset life-style for Hayut and his ‘staff’ added up quick. In simply 54 days, the good-looking Israeli imposter spent two million Norwegian krone ($224,220) on Louboutins in Bangkok, on Gucci in Barcelona, on the Ritz Carlton in Berlin and the Conservatory in Amsterdam.
Together with her Amex maxed out, Fjellhoy opened ten extra strains of credit score to proceed paying for her crook-boyfriend. She took out a mortgage to repay her bank cards, however the cash Hayut promised to repay wasn’t coming in.
‘My angel My love I simply talked to the financial institution they usually informed me that the [transfer] of Amex shall be there on Monday thousand %,’ learn one textual content message Hayut despatched her. He additionally added a financial institution letter from TD Financial institution testifying to a financial institution switch within the quantity of $500,000 to her account, however that doc was cast.
After three months, the connection was all however over. Fjellhoy stated the second she lastly realized Hayut had stolen her cash was ‘such a shock’.
‘I virtually wished to throw up, it was the primary time in my life that I had gotten such a shock that my physique bodily was telling me that, ‘OK your life is ruined,’ all the pieces got here crashing down round me,’ she informed Nightline on ABC.
Within the Netflix trailer Fjellhoy remembers: ‘That is when police inform me, the person I really like was by no means actual, all the pieces’s a lie.’
Pernilla Sjoholm (left) and Cecilie Fjellhoy (proper) staff up with one other sufferer, Ayleen Koeleman to inform their story in a brand new Netflix doc that follows them as they uncover his ‘Simon Leviev’s’ true id and struggle to convey him to justice
After three months, the connection between Fjellhoy and Hayut was all however over. She stated the second she lastly realized he had stolen her cash was ‘such a shock’. ‘I virtually wished to throw up, it was the primary time in my life that I had gotten such a shock that my physique bodily was telling me that, ‘OK your life is ruined,’ all the pieces got here crashing down round me’
Pernilla Sjoholm first met Shimon Hayut (posing as Simon Leviev) on Tinder in March 2018. ‘He was good and humorous and really impulsive’ she says within the Netflix trailer
Hayut can also be underneath investigation for fraud within the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany
By then, faux Russian oligarch had moved on to his subsequent sufferer, a Swedish girl named Pernilla Sjoholm, whom he splurged over $10,000 on taking to the opera in a limousine.
They first met on Tinder in March 2018. ‘He was good and humorous and really impulsive’ says Pernilla Sjoholm within the Netflix trailer for The Tinder Swindler.
‘This may increasingly sound unusual,’ Sjoholm informed Verdens Gang, ‘However he is very considerate.’
It wasn’t till eight months into their relationship that Hyut requested to borrow $45,000. He repaid her with priceless watch that she later found was faux.
Shortly after loaning him the cash, Pernilla found that she had been swindled when an investigative reporter for Verdens Gang, contacted her to elucidate that they have been researching the case of a serial fraudster. Collectively, they arrange a sting operation to cease Shimon Hayut from his persevering with his rip-off.
‘He isn’t your on a regular basis swindler,’ she says. ‘This man is in a league of his personal.’
New Netflix documentary ‘tells the jaw-dropping story of a prolific conman who posed as a billionaire playboy on Tinder, and the ladies who got down to convey him down’
When she lastly confronted the person who she as soon as known as a ‘pal,’ he responded with little regret: ‘Pernilla should you double cross me, I can let you know proper now that you’ll pay for it for the remainder of your life.’
By way of textual content message in Might 2019, Shimon Hayut informed ABC’s Nightline that he was harmless and that the accusations in opposition to him have been merely about ‘a mortgage between mates that went south.’ He added: ‘They used me for my life they received costly items and all the pieces, in different phrases gold diggers.’
The faux billionaire fugitive was lastly captured in June 2019 throughout a joint operation between Interpol and Israeli Police.
Shimon Hayut was sentenced to fifteen months in jail and ordered to pay his victims $43,289 in compensation in December 2019, however was launched after solely serving 5 months.
‘How will you give belief to a person like that, who escaped from Israel twice?’ responded Pernilla Sjoholm to the information. ‘A person that deceived and swindled girls in Europe for lots of of 1000’s of euros. The place is the justice?’ she stated.
Seems, she was proper. As soon as a conman, at all times a conman, Hayut was accused of mendacity his approach into receiving an early vaccine dose once they have been solely being administered to medical employees, these over the age of 60 and at-risk teams,
He informed The Instances of Israel: ‘I’m not somebody who waits in line or at locations. With all due respect, I cannot sit and wait 3-4 hours. I’m not somebody who waits and nobody can say a phrase about it.’