This article includes numerous spoilers.
If you’ve seen the recent Netflix documentary, “The Tinder Swindler,” you won’t be surprised to learn that the film’s icky antagonist – con man Shimon Hayut, aka Simon Leviev, aka a lot of other psuedonymns – has been banned from Tinder.
If you’ve seen the documentary, viewers are probably more surprised and potentially incensed that he isn’t still in jail.
The wild movie follows the exploits of Hayut, via three different women from whom he swindled loads of money, while convincing them he was an ultra-rich, globe-hopping diamond dealer.
The success of the doc has forced Tinder to come out with a statement proving that he’s not finding his new marks through their app.
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As E! News reports, a Tinder spokesperson clarified things this week: "We banned Simon Leviev and any of his known aliases as soon as the story of his actions became public in 2019. He is permanently banned from Tinder. In the lead up to the release of the documentary, we conducted additional internal investigations and can confirm Simon Leviev is not active on Tinder under any of his known aliases."
According to TMZ, Leviev/Hayut has also been permanently banned by OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyofFish, OurTime, Meetic, Pairs, and Match.
Hayut’s scam basically involved finding women on Tinder, convincing them he was a charming, wealthy, powerful man constantly being chased by nefarious enemies, hence landing him in dangerous situations where he’d need monetary help to extricate himself -- of course with a promise of paying all the money back.
The many women he conned lost hundreds of thousands of dollars while Hayut – a poor man from Israel – lived a luxurious lifestyle off his trickery.
With the help of the Norwegian newspaper, “Verdens Gang,” some of the women were able to track Hayut down and prove his complex scams.
He was finally arrested at the Athens, Greece, airport on June 28, 2019. He was then convicted of four counts of fraud, sentenced to 15 months in an Israeli prison, but only served five.
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The seemingly lenient sentence was in part due to efforts to decrease the prison population at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s all a mysterious, maddening, cautionary tale for anyone flippantly swiping through dating apps. By the end of “Tinder Swindler,” Hayut is out of the klink, blowing cash again, and actually dating women he is meeting online.
"The Tinder Swindler" is available to stream on Netflix.
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