DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDREL (THE TINDER SWINDLER)

 

Simon Leviev - remember the name.

David Sharon - remember that too.

Oh and remember Mordechai Nisim Tapiro, Avraham Levy and Michael Bilton while you are at it.

But most of all, remember the name Shimon Yehuda Hayut because he is the Israeli conman behind all of these aliases.

He is also the focus of Felicity Morris' extraordinary Netflix documentary 'The Tinder Swindler' which tells a catfishing tale of epic proportions.

Morris' cautionary tale examines the rise of the dating app Tinder where people go in search of love or just to hook up, based on profile pics of potential dates and their sugarcoated descriptions of themselves.

London-bases Norwegian graduate student Cecille Fjellhoy laughs at the start of Morris' documentary as she claims she is something of an expert about how to use the dating app. 

Your Tinder profile pics should include an eye catching shot of yourself and another with friends just to show how social you are, she observes.

It should hint at a fun, wealthy lifestyle if you are to catch the man or woman of your dreams.

Like Marilyn Monroe's Lorelei Lee in Howard Hawks' 1952 classic comedy 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes', Cecille believes that "a man being rich is like a girl being pretty.. You might not marry a girl because she's pretty but, my goodness, doesn't it help?"

Flicking through Tinder, she recounts how Simon Leviev's profile caught her eye.

A date is arranged in London during which he tells Cecile he's the son of a wealthy Israeli diamond magnate, Lev Leviev.

Calling himself the "Prince of diamonds," Hayut/Leviev invites her to join him on a trip to Sofia on a private jet with his bodyguard and the mother of his two year old daughter.

Her head spinning at the prospect of landing a jet setting, sharp suited heir to a lucrative diamond business, Cecille is seduced into going on the trip and on a car journey to the airport is told by his ex what a great guy Simon is.

The woman says he's a supportive and inclusive father to their two year old even though their romantic relationship ended some time ago.

After spending the night with Hayut/Leviev in a luxury hotel, she is smitten and returns to London believing she has found a special one.

"Simon" bombards her with romantic messages in between images of him jet setting around Europe and he occasionally wines and dines her in expensive restaurants in London, even talking about buying an apartment there to live with Cecille.

However at the same time he is also befriending a Swede, Pernilla Sjoholm through Tinder and wining and dining her in Amsterdam.

Charmed by the fake diamond billionaire, Pernilla joins him and his entourage to Mykonos in Greece where Hayut/Leviev spends huge sums parting with his Russian girlfriend.

While they live it up, he is spinning a tale to Cecille in London that his bodyguard has been attacked and his enemies are coming to get them, putting their lives in danger.

"Simon" claims the threat is so bad he has had to cancel his credit cards to avoid being traced.

Persuading her to lend him money by passinh on the details of her credit cards, the lavish spending spree he goes on pays for Pernille and his entourage's Mykonos adventure.

Promising Cecille a cheque to cover $250,000 debt he has racked up on her card, he meets up and hands it over.

On her return to London, she cashes the cheque to help pay off her creditors - only to realise the bank will not cash it and he has duped her.

Betrayed, humiliated and financially ruined, Cecille is so depressed she contemplates suicide and checks herself into a psychiatric institution.

Hayut/Leviev starts to move in on his next target Pernille, spinning the same cock and bull story about being in danger from his enemies and needing her to bail him out with money.

When Cecille reveals her extraordinary story to the investigative reporting team of Natalie Remoe Hansen and Erlend Ofte Arnetsen from Norway's VG newspaper, they are able to unearth more details about Hayut/Leviev.

They discover he was convicted for running a similar scam in Finland, duping three women.

They travel to Tel Aviv and to his family home where they encounter his mother who says she has not heard from him since he was 18 but knows he has assumed the identity of Simon Leviev.

A conversation with a police officer reveals the Israeli authorities are aware of him and his activities.

More significantly, the reporters are able to work out he has been scamming Pernille and when Arnetsen contacts her, they set up a potential confrontation with the sophisticated shyster in Munich.

The tables are turned on Hayut/Leviev but not in a way that viewers might expect.

Another potential victim, Dutch woman Ayleen Charlotte becomes involved and has a key role in his exposure.

Watching Morris' documentary, it's easy to see how Hollywood could turn this tale into a skittish comedy drama.

However 'The Tinder Swindler' isn't a light hearted conman caper like Frank Oz's 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' or Steven Spielberg's 'Catch Me If You Can'.

Hayut/Leviev/Tapiro/Levy/Bilton/Sharon isn't a likeable rogue like the Steve Martin, Michael Caine and Leonardo DiCaprio characters in those movies.

He is a cynical exploiter of gullible women, fleecing them for hundreds of thousands of dollars and leaving them with huge debts to fund his conman lifestyle.

Undoubtedly clever, he plays a sophisticated game using social media and effectively runs a Ponzi scheme using his victims' credit cards to pay for a lavish lifestyle which sets up his next target.

And when his deviousness is exposed, he becomes aggressive while still trying to manipulate his victims.

There really is nothing to admire about him.

Morris constructs a compelling tale drawn from the cloud records of Cecille Fjellhoy and Pernilla Sjoholm's social media.

Every message, voicemail and photo from their encounters with Hayut/Leviev/Tapiro/Levy/Bilton/Sharon is used to expose his heartlessness.

And while it is tempting to dismiss his victims as silly and naive, that's victim shaming when the focus should really be on the criminal. 

'The Tinder Swindler' should really be a bit of a wake up call about the kind of world we have become.

In a world where the endless spinning of social media accounts and dating apps have become accepted as normal behaviour, a lot of people have become susceptible to shysters in politics, shysters in business and shysters in love.

Shimon Yehuda Hayut is one of a long line of shysters exploiting vulnerable people - his trail of lies exposed on the Internet for the world to see.

After the Capitol Hill riots and this cautionary tale, when is society going to wake up, put the smartphones down and stop falling for these con artists?

Or are we simply past the point of no return?

'The Tinder Swindler' shouldn't be seen as just another piece of true life entertainment.

It actually should be a warning to those who swim in the pirannah infested waters of fake social media profiles and dating apps.

It is, in its own 21st Century way, a form of public service broadcasting.

Remember Shimon Yehuda Hayut.

Remember what he looks like and all his aliases.

But above all, put the smartphones down, stop living vicariously through the fakery of social media and dating apps and start living a real life with real friends.

('The Tinder Swindler' was made available for streaming on Netflix on February 2, 2022)

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