The Tinder Swindler himself, Shimon Hayut, has bragged that the Netflix documentary set out to expose him was, in fact, about his “successful business career”.
The now-famous fraudster, who became famous through the Netflix true-crime documentary, posed as Simon Leviev, the billionaire son of a diamond mogul.
Although he was exposed for stealing money from women worldwide to fund his ‘billionaire’ lifestyle, he has been pretending the documentary was about his success, according to one of his victims.
Pernilla Sjoholm, one of the women who exposed Hayut and is now supporting other fraud victims, spoke to Metro.co.uk.
“Even when they were doing the Netflix movie, he was going out and saying there was a Netflix movie being made about his successful business life,” she told the magazine.
Alongside Cecile Fjellhøy and Ayleen Koeleman, Pernilla is working with the real Leviev family to bring Shimon to justice.
“We’re very grateful for the help we’re getting from the Leviev family as well,” she said. “It’s still my goal [to put Simon in prison], I’m never going to give up on that.”
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Instead of being behind bars, the Tinder Swindler has signed with Hollywood talent agency Gitoni, launched his career with a website, an NFT collection, and even released his own merch displaying slogans from the Netflix doco.
In an interview with Inside Edition, Hayut has protested his innocence and claimed he’s “not a monster”.
“I was just a single guy that wanted to meet some girls on Tinder. I am not a Tinder Swindler,” he revealed.
While so many have mocked Pernilla and Hayut’s other victims for falling for his lies, she finds it rather amusing that people now believe his lies on social media.
“I just find it so funny because everyone asks how could you believe him, but then he goes out on social media and says one thing and then everyone believes that is the truth,” she said. “He is a fraudster. Nothing he says is true. He’s a fraudster and everything he says is a lie. He’s become a cartoon character.”
In 2019, Hayut was imprisoned in Israel for travelling with a fake passport but was released five months later for good behaviour.
Previously, he spent two years in a Finnish prison after defrauding several women and was released in 2017.
Now he is against a lawsuit from the real Leviev family, accusing him of using their family name for “criminal purposes”.
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