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Years of legal hell for woman in Cyprus courtesy of infamous Tinder Swindler

feature gina main pic shimon hayut worked in cyprus when he was around 20, now he’s known as the infamous tinder swindler
Shimon Hayut worked in Cyprus when he was around 20, Now he’s known as the infamous Tinder Swindler
‘He was bit obsessive… always taking pictures of himself… always out posing…’

Everyone knows online dating can be dangerous, but that never stopped anyone from swiping right.

Men who used the app to lure victims have been charged with murder, sexual assault, a man was actually arrested for posing as a woman to rape other men.  Another, under the name Richard Dexter was jailed after conning a woman he met on Tinder out of more than £140,000.

Sound familiar? That’s perhaps because Dexter was portrayed as the “UK’s Tinder Swindler” by some media.

Netflix’ new true crime documentary drew attention to a specific man known as Simon Leviev, (born Shimon Hayut) a convicted fraudster, who used Tinder to meet women and make them trust him with a series of manipulation tactics before asking for money he would never return.

The Tinder Swindler, directed by Felicity Morris was initially released on February 2, and soon hit the Top 10 in Cyprus. It tells the story of three women who were defrauded after they had a first costly and impressive date with what they thought of was the man of their dreams.

The documentary soon became the talk of every town which was why it came as a surprise when it emerged this week the 31-year-old conman used to live in the island in 2010.

On top of that, the so-called Tinder Swindler was charged with credit card fraud in Cyprus, a woman who used to work with him at a store in a Limassol shopping mall told Spotify in a podcast about the making of the Netflix film.

Prior to his conviction in Athens in 2019 for traveling under a fake passport, and before he was caught and jailed by Finnish authorities in 2015 for defrauding three women, a young Simon was cruising Limassol with a rented BMW he had paid for with stolen credit cards.

Courtney Simmonds Miller, originally from the UK, had recently moved to Cyprus when she started working with Simon in the summer of 2010 when they were both just 20 years old, she said in The Making of a Swindler.

feature gina courtney simmonds miller had her entanglement with shimon hayut around ten years ago
Courtney Simmonds Miller had her entanglement with Shimon Hayut around ten years ago

“It was really good fun. We were really good buddies,” she told producers Bernadette Higgins and Felicity Morris.

She remembers Simon as being “very into fashion” and liking “the nicer things in life”.

“He was bit obsessive about things like that, always taking pictures of himself… he was always out posing…you know with the girls,” Courtney said.

Even though he was “a really likeable character”, people failed to take him seriously because he was a bit of a dreamer, his former co-worker said.

However, he must have been good at making people trust him. Courtney remembers how he used to sweet-talk her by reminding her of how special she is to him, before he got her wrapped up in one of his schemes.

“He was probably practising with me, I probably was the first person he kind of swindled maybe.”

After less than a year of working together, he went back to his home country, Israel. From there, he called her saying his family owns an airline and that he wanted to get back to Cyprus to open some companies.

He asked her to become his personal assistant by telling her “I trust you I don’t trust anybody else,” and by offering to pay the amount she wanted as they were friends.

“Sounds exciting- I am in,” Courtney said and quit her job.

Her first assignment came just before he arrived in the island. She had to rent a very luxurious branded BMW so Simon could go to his business meetings in style.

She did not have the money, so Simon read her the numbers of some credit cards through the phone.

“We rented the car and everything was fine for like a month or so,” she said, until the owner of the car rental company called back asking them to return and sign some more papers.

Courtney and Simon ended up at the police station on suspicion of using stolen credit cards.

During questioning, Simon remained calm and assured the young girl that this was “all a big misunderstanding” which will soon be sorted out.

He stuck to his persona even after the arrest, while they were being remanded in court.

“I remember vividly sitting next to him in court and telling him; tell me now if you have done this if you care about me you need to tell me what you’ve done and you need to tell the truth cause I need to get a lawyer.”

“I can’t believe you are saying that, don’t you trust me, I will never put you in that situation” he just totally reassured me, Courtney said. They spent that night in custody.

Three years later, the woman was still going through court proceedings after he fled the country, leaving her to deal with the mess.

Every time she would appear in court, she was afraid if this might be the time she ends up in jail.

She was eventually acquitted, which was difficult, she says, as she had the stolen credit cards on her when they were arrested. Simon had given her his wallet to hold before they entered the police station, Courtney said.

Throughout her ordeal, Simon called her once, still trying to reassure her he would take care of her legal fees, something he never did.

That was the last time Courtney heard from Simon, until the Tinder Swindler documentary was released.

“I felt sorry for him. I mean it must be a really lonely situation to having to just defraud people all the time and have these fake relationships with people,” said Courtney, who is now the owner of two successful businesses.

In the end of June 2019, Simon Leviev was arrested by Greek police in Athens, and later extradited to Israel. This was shortly after VG newspaper in Norway exposed him when one of his marks Cecilie Fjelloy went to them with her story after he swindled her out of $250,000, which she’d borrowed to help him out. He had sent her a fake cheque for the money and she realised she was not getting it back.

He was arrested after another one of his “girlfriends” who saw the VG article turned the tables on him. Knowing who he now was and telling her he was in dire straits, Ayleen Koeleman convinced him during a trip to Prague that she could sell his designer clothes to make some quick cash for him. Selling the items on eBay, she kept the money, swindling the Tinder Swindler herself after he had milked her for around $140,000.

Once she realised where he was heading from Prague, she gave his flight information to the Greek authorities so they could pick him up at the airport where he landed using a fake passport under the name David Sharon.

In December 2019 he was convicted to 15 months in jail for theft and fraud in Israel. He was released after five months because of good behaviour.

Media reported that after the release of the Netflix documentary, Tinder banned Hayut from their app. He is also banned from other apps under Match Group Inc, including Match.com, Plenty of Fish and OkCupid.

Apparently, he now lives as a free man in Tel Aviv, maintaining the same lavish lifestyle and is dating an Israeli model.

He is estimated to have swindled about €10million from various women, according to The Times of Israel.

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