Tinder swindler victim: ‘Everything was a lie’

When Cecile Fjellhoy matched with Simon Leviev on Tinder in January 2018, he appeared to be the perfect man – good-looking, romantic and very rich. Sweeping Cecile off her feet with lavish dates and trips on his private jet, Simon showered the student with presents, flowers and hotel stays. She believed she’d found true love.

Cecile, then 29, who is originally from Norway, said, “Simon had an aura about him, a real confidence. Dating him was like stepping into a movie. It was a totally different world.”

After searching his name on Google, Cecile thought Simon seemed legitimate. He claimed to be the heir to a diamond company, and on his Instagram were photos of him with billionaire diamond mogul Lev Leviev, who she believed to be his father.

But unbeknown to Cecile, Simon – who was born Shimon Yehuda Hayut and was from Israel – had been lying to her from the very beginning. Rather than being the heir to a diamond company, as he’d told Cecile, he was actually a con artist – and she wasn’t the first woman to have fallen for his tricks.

As new Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler recounts, Simon, 31, had previously conned multiple women out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. While they all believed they were dating a wealthy businessman, he was actually using the cash he’d swindled from previous “girlfriends” as a front.

As part of his scam, Simon told Cecile that due to his work as a philanthropist and investor, he had threats surrounding his security. She said, “He’d got bullets in the mail and funeral flowers had been sent. The security team told him he wasn’t safe in London any more.”

One night, Cecile was woken up by a message from Simon – he’d sent her pictures of his bodyguard, covered in blood. Horrified, Cecile listened as he explained that his “enemies” were after him and were tracking his movements via his credit card. So when Simon asked Cecile to take out a credit card in her name, which he could then use, it seemed like an obvious way to keep him safe.

Cecile felt sure he’d pay her back. “I had no reason not to believe him,” she said. Cecile loved him and they’d discussed their future together. After three months of dating, they agreed to move in together, with Simon telling Cecile to look for houses to rent with a budget of around £11,000. But this was just the start of Simon’s scheming. He quickly maxed out the credit card and asked Cecile to meet him with £25,000 in cash. She said, “I took out a loan and, although I was super-scared having that amount of cash in my bag, the moment I was with him, I felt safe. He was really grateful.”

Only that night, more drama ensued when Simon received a call and claimed there’d been a security breach and that he needed to board a flight immediately. Cecile was terrified for her boyfriend’s safety, and in the weeks that followed, she believed he was travelling around the world, attempting to hide from his enemies. Whenever his money ran out, he’d get Cecile to take out more cards and loans. She said, “It was a pressure that I’ve never experienced before, to have someone’s life dependent on what you’re doing. If I didn’t help him, what might happen?”

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In reality, Simon was holidaying in Mykonos, Rome and Vienna. He reserved areas in exclusive clubs, paying for everyone’s drinks, flew on helicopters, drove a Rolls Royce, and stayed in hotels that cost £5,000 a night.

Cecile racked up debts of around £180,000 from nine different creditors – and Simon still hadn’t paid her back. She said, “I told him I just needed some kind of money. That’s when he gave me a cheque.”

But Cecile’s bank refused to accept it – which was when Simon’s lies unravelled. Cecile called the American Express Helpline, and hearing how distressed she was, members of the bank paid her a visit. In her desperation, Cecile showed them a photo of her boyfriend, who they revealed was on their radar as a con man. Cecile said, “He’d faked everything. It was horrible, because in a sense, I still loved him – or the person I thought he was. But everything was a lie.”

Cecile fled to her mum’s house in Norway. She blocked Simon from contacting her, but he left a terrifying message on her mum’s phone, saying, “Take my advice. Watch out. Because with every action there will be a reaction.”

Cecile said, “I felt like I was just drowning. I was driving down this road and I saw this trailer coming towards me and I thought, ‘What if I just take the car over... then at least it’s over’. That’s when I got really scared. I put myself in a psychiatric ward because I didn’t know what to do.”

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With Cecile no longer funding Simon’s lavish lifestyle, he turned to another woman he’d met on Tinder, former sales employee Pernilla Sjoholm. Although there was no romantic connection between the pair, they became friends. Sending her the same battered pictures of his bodyguard and saying he was in danger, he asked for £22,000. Pernilla said, “I had my savings that were going to go towards buying myself a new apartment, but what is more important? My friend’s security situation or me buying a new apartment? I made a bank transfer.” She says she thought she was helping out a friend and had no reason to believe she was being lied to.

Meanwhile, in the psychiatric ward, Cecile was desperate for answers. She contacted American Express again, who told her to Google Shimon Yehuda Hayut. It was then she found an article about a man who had scammed women in Finland in 2015. Cecile said, “I had to stop him.”

Cecile approached VG – the biggest newspaper in Norway – and they agreed to take on her story. After examining Cecile’s bank statements, the journalists noticed flight tickets that had been booked for Pernilla, so they got in touch with her, explaining she’d been scammed. Pernilla said, “I panicked, I thought I was going to pass out. I couldn’t believe the person I thought I knew could do such a thing. It was like a friend had died.”

In February 2019, the newspaper published an article about Simon called “The Tinder Swindler” and victims across the world got in touch. With enough evidence, in July 2019, Simon was found guilty of theft and fraud, and in the December was sentenced to 15 months in prison for the crimes he committed in Israel. But shockingly, he was released after just five months.

Now, he is still active on Instagram and appears to still be living a life of luxury. With his new model girlfriend by his side, he happily shows off new purchases, including sports cars. Meanwhile, the women he defrauded are still paying off their debts and have set up a GoFundMe page to help cover their debts. In total, it’s estimated he swindled almost £8m from victims across the world. Cecile said, “People say I was stupid, but I truly believed he was in danger. The pressure I was under cannot be described.”

And the new Netflix documentary aims to bring the truth to light. Director Felicity Morris said, “I hope that this film exposes him on a whole new level and acts as a reckoning for him and any others like him.”

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The Tinder Swindler is on Netflix now