THE AUSTRALIAN
‘He’s so sick’: Tinder
swindler victims have
the last word
He seemed like a perfect match on
Tinder, but international playboy Simon
Leviev turned out to be a 20-something
grifter — and they got fleeced. Should we
feel sorry for them?
By POLLY VERNON
From The Weekend Australian Magazine February 4, 2022
13 MINUTE READ •
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et’s call him “Leviev” for the purposes of this story – that’s how his victims
knew him. He’s a flashily dressed chap, good-looking, who met his marks
on dating app Tinder, romanced them in a heady whirl of private jets, fivestar hotels and several thousand euros’ worth of VIP tables in Europe’s
splashiest nightclubs, then fleeced them for tens of thousands – sometimes
hundreds of thousands. It’s not entirely clear how many women Leviev seduced,
stole from, then abandoned in an act known as catfishing. For he was not the
international playboy Simon Leviev. He was just a 20-something grifter named
Shimon Hayut.
Three of his most recent victims – Cecilie Fjellhoy from Norway, Pernilla Sjoholm
from Sweden and Ayleen Charlotte from the Netherlands, all of whom co-operated
to get Leviev arrested and imprisoned – have told their stories in a new
documentary, The Tinder Swindler. It starts with Fjellhoy, a peachy-skinned, blonde
computer programmer who dreams of Disney-perfect love affairs and even now
clings to the idea there is a Prince Charming out there somewhere, waiting for her,
despite everything. Fjellhoy – 29 years old at the time of her catfishing, freshly
relocated from Norway to London, a self-­described “Tinder expert” – swiped right
(Tinder lexicon for “express interest”) on Simon Leviev’s profile in January 2018.
Why? “He had the kind of look I like,” she says in the film. Footage of his Tinder
profile plays and viewers are introduced to Leviev as Fjellhoy was. We see him – 29
according to his profile – in a succession of photos, cross-legged, tanned and
entitled on the deck of a yacht, strapped into the copilot’s seat of a helicopter,
lounging in the cabin of a private jet. He is sharply dressed, groomed and above all,
rich-looking and seemingly extravagant.
It wasn’t just the impression of richness that appealed to Fjellhoy, though: it was as
much a question of the drive this indicated. Though, she adds, “It’s like Marilyn
Monroe in the movie G
­ entlemen Prefer Blondes when she says, ‘Don’t you know
that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You might not marry a girl just
because she’s pretty but, my goodness, doesn’t it help?’ It’s a very true quote. You
want the full package.” Fjellhoy “matched” with Leviev, who had already swiped
right on her profile; within hours, they meet for a date in the lobby of the Four
Seasons hotel on Park Lane in London. He tells her he’s staying there while on a
business trip.
“He has this magnetism,” Fjellhoy says. “There’s something about this guy that is just
special.” Leviev tells Fjellhoy he’s the CEO of LLD ­Diamonds, a role he inherited
from his father, the real-life Lev Leviev, a man Forbes once called the “King of
Diamonds” – which is why Leviev styles himself “Prince of Diamonds”. He scrolls
through his phone for images that back up his stories: the Forbes cover shot of Lev
Leviev, a photo of Lev with his arm slung around his “son’s” shoulder.
When Leviev is not dazzling Fjellhoy with stories of his success, he tells her about
the daughter he shares with an ex, about how lonely his jetset lifestyle makes him,
and how much he longs for a connection with someone. In other words, he
bombards her with a semblance of intimacy, a semblance of trust, which invites her
to trust him in return.
Fjellhoy spends barely an hour with Leviev, yet feels deeply connected to him.
When, at the end of the date, he tells her he’s flying to Bulgaria for business on a
private jet that evening and asks if she’d like to come, she agrees. They sleep
together that first night, and embark on what Fjellhoy takes for a giddy, intense love
affair, one that escalates quickly over three months, thanks in no small part to the
amount of time Leviev and Fjellhoy spend apart while he flies around the world on
business trips, exchanging loving voice messages and texts all the while.
Fjellhoy experiences it as intensely romantic in its uncertainty, its spontaneity, in
the bittersweet pang of constantly missing someone. All of which is ramped up
considerably by Leviev telling her that, because of the nature of the diamond
business, the high stakes and multi-millions in play, he is often subject to threats of
violence, and periodically has to go underground on the advice of his security team,
led by a personal bodyguard called Peter.
In March 2018, Leviev asks Fjellhoy to move in with him, and to find a flat for them
to share in London. Then, in April, barely 12 weeks after their first date, while
Fjellhoy is out for drinks with some friends, she receives a text from Leviev that
reads only, “Blood”. A second reads, “Peter, hurt” and is followed by a picture of the
security guard’s battered head.
Fjellhoy freaks out. Leviev then sends confusing video messages, apparently from
an ambulance, saying how “they” had wanted to kill him, but Peter saved him – the
two are now safe. The following ­morning, she receives messages from Leviev
explaining that his security team have forbidden him from using his credit cards
because his “enemies” will use them to trace his location. So he needs to use her
cards temporarily. “It wasn’t even a question,” Fjellhoy says. She signs over a
platinum card to him, which he maxes out; then he demands that she increases her
limit and flies to Amsterdam with $25,000 in cash… all of which Fjellhoy does,
taking out a loan for the cash, and lying on credit card application forms for the
rest.
A further week or so passes, along with more and more demands from Leviev for
wired cash – $250,000 all told (“More, probably,” she’ll tell me) – before Cecilie
Fjellhoy begins to wonder if everything is quite as Leviev claims. The money he
keeps promising to transfer into her account in repayment never appears.
Eventually, at his bidding, Fjellhoy flies back to Amsterdam where Leviev –
suddenly cold towards her – gives her a cheque for $500,000. Fjellhoy returns to
London, discovers that the cheque cannot be cashed, and begins to truly
understand that she’s been had.
What Leviev was in fact doing in the time he claimed to be in hiding was ­setting up
a friendship with another Tinder user, Pernilla Sjoholm, a saleswoman from
Stockholm. That relationship, while not romantic (“A little short for my taste, but
easy to talk to,” Sjoholm says of her first impressions of Leviev), was every bit as
intense as the relationship Fjellhoy believed herself to be in.
After matching with Leviev, Sjoholm was flown from Stockholm to Amsterdam for
coffee and an introductory chat, felt a non-sexual yet nevertheless profound
connection with him and entered into a constant exchange of texts and FaceTime
calls with him. She felt gratified and supported when he flew last-minute to
Stockholm to take her out for a drink because she was having a bad day, and stood
amused (if a little bored) on the sidelines of champagne-fuelled nights in clubs on
the Greek island of Mykonos, which led to afterparties in $5000-a-night hotels – all
of which was funded by Fjellhoy’s mounting debts.
This was how Simon Leviev – or rather, ­Shimon Hayut, an Israeli citizen who’d
been ­convicted and imprisoned for fraud against three Finnish women in 2015 –
operated. He worked over one woman after another after another, meeting them on
Tinder, dazzling them with intense, instant emotional connection, reassuring them
with the impression of intoxicating wealth, then ripping them off, so that he might
dazzle then rip off the next.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: great yarn, but really – silly
women! How could they have fallen for that? He’s so obviously a wrong ’un! You’re
thinking, my sympathy is pretty limited, TBH – that could never happen to me. I’m
too smart, not nearly as easily impressed by the semblance of wealth. Or, it’s
something to do with them being Scandinavian, probably: his sleaziness got lost in
translation. Or, maybe it’s because they’re beautiful, so not used to the world
treating them unkindly, not alert to the red flags less lovely women might pick up
on. Or, it’s because they’re the Instagram generation, so caught up in the
appearance of things that they’re oblivious to how things actually are.
I know you’re thinking this, because, when Norwegian newspaper VG published
Fjellhoy and Sjoholm’s story – having worked with them to expose Leviev, because
the authorities were only interested in pursuing Fjellhoy for the money she now
owed – that’s exactly how the internet responded, and because every time I tell
anyone who hasn’t yet seen the film about these two ­Tinder Swindler victims, that’s
what they say. Not “Poor them” but “Daft them”. I thought it too – at least, watching
the early part of the documentary. I tutted, “Who gets on a private jet with
someone just hours after swiping right on them?” But then I met Cecilie Fjellhoy
and Pernilla Sjoholm.
Fjellhoy is now 33, as bright-eyed and clear-skinned and pretty as she seems on
screen. She tells me she was the golden girl of her family, before this happened, the
one who never put a foot wrong (“Education, good job, apartment in Oslo…”). She’s
funny, sweary, smart, both very sweet and very raw, still obviously shattered by the
shame the experience inflicted on her – the shame of the scam, the shame of
feeling heartbroken nonetheless at the demise of the “relationship”, the shame of
being taken apart in court by the banks she owed money to, all of which were out
to prove she’d been in on Leviev’s scam.
She laughs when the Netflix PR tells her she needn’t answer any questions she’s
uncomfortable with and says none of them could compare to the ones put to her by
the banks’ lawyers. She is capable of laughing at the more incredulous aspects of her
story, and seems eternally, persistently, almost preposterously romantic. “I love love.
I think I have been in love and I know I can do it again. He’s taken away enough of
me; he’s not going to take away that.” But she also makes casual reference to how
she became suicidal in the aftermath of Leviev’s exposure, spent time on a
psychiatric ward and is now officially bankrupt. She understands why people
respond to her story with disbelief, she says; once, she might have done the same.
“But now I’ve become much more soft because I understand how the human brain
works, and these people are good at what they do. Take out a big fishing net, you
know, and there are some people that will say no, and there are some people that
will say yes.”
So, I ask, why does Fjellhoy think she was one of the people who said yes to Leviev?
“I think at that point in time I was, not vulnerable, but I’d just moved to London, I
had done my master’s, worked part-time in a new city, didn’t know many people. I
didn’t have close friends and my family weren’t here.” You had no social context?
No one who knew you well, on whom you could rely to check you, question you,
stop you? “Right.”
I might have wondered if Fjellhoy’s romantic streak made her ripe for Leviev’s con,
except that, before meeting her, I’d already had a Zoom chat with Pernilla Sjoholm.
Equally pretty, smart and bright, Sjoholm had no romantic connection with Leviev,
but got conned just the same. We speak on the morning of her 35th birthday (“It’s
not a situation I would want to be in at the age of 35,” she says, “fighting to get my
life back”).
“What he did with Cecilie, he did it so differently,” Sjoholm says. “He adapts his
personality. Like, for example, I don’t like people who are flashy and show-off, so he
never did that with me. And then when everything came out, I could just see all
these videos [of Leviev’s excessive lifestyle] and I’m like, ‘Who is this person?’”
Does Sjoholm feel she got away lightly, because she didn’t get romantically or
sexually involved with Leviev? “No. I mean, who do you want to be betrayed by?
Your best friend or your boyfriend? With a guy, you can always [think], ‘My
boyfriend might cheat.’ But with your best friends, you think they are always going
to be loyal. I have a really hard time now letting people in, finding new friends. I’m
suspicious when someone tries to come into my life. I get scared they’re going to
hurt me.” Sjoholm, like Fjellhoy, contemplated suicide in the wake of Leviev’s con.
Both Fjellhoy and Sjoholm tell me the reason they decided to appear in the film,
despite ­their concerns it would reignite the public scorn the VG article inspired, is
that they desperately want justice. Apart from that brief jail term back in 2015,
Leviev got away with all his crimes because the authorities simply weren’t bothered
enough to stop him. This is why he’d been able to go on to defraud Fjellhoy, then
Sjoholm, whom one credit card company could have alerted to the risk she faced
after Fjellhoy flagged it – only, it chose not to. (“We have a lot of questions for
them,” Fjellhoy tells me, coolly.)
Why was Leviev allowed to persist? Perhaps because his crimes were committed in
so many different countries, pursuing him was complicated logistically. Perhaps
because the shame many ­victims felt compelled them to silence. Perhaps because
the nature of his crimes is new and internet-enabled, and so understanding them as
crimes is difficult. Perhaps because of what Fjellhoy calls “the woman angle, to be
very honest with you”. I can see there might be limited compassion for the suffering
of young, attractive Scandinavian women. “But that goes for a lot of crimes against
women. ‘Rape? It’s your fault. Why did you go there? Why are you dressing like
this?’ It’s the same with fraud. So here I am, the bad person.”
One could even imagine the same impulse that drove me and everyone I tell about
the Tinder Swindler to belittle and dismiss the suffering of Leviev’s victims may
have informed a greater international apathy, a general lack of interest among the
various authorities in stopping Leviev.
In the end Fjellhoy, Sjoholm and, latterly, Ayleen Charlotte worked together,
independently of the authorities, to ensure Leviev was caught in 2019 and
ultimately imprisoned, though only for five short months and on charges that did
not relate to the crimes he committed against the very women who got him
arrested.
So here these women are, still profoundly ­damaged by the actions of one man; still
stuck in limbo, either too broke to buy their own home (in the case of Sjoholm), or
bankrupt and fearing for their financial future (Fjellhoy); too damaged to attempt
another serious relationship (Fjellhoy), or any relationship at all (Sjoholm); still
employing language that suggests they think they’re solely responsible for what
happened (“I totally f. ked up,” Fjellhoy tells me at one point).
Leviev, meanwhile, appears to be cheerfully moving on. He’s not only out of prison,
he’s up to his old tricks, posturing all over Instagram, posting more images of his
supposed wealth: the cars, the clothes, the clubs. He has a new girlfriend. “I’ve heard
she’s properly brainwashed,” Fjellhoy says.
Of course, Leviev’s victims want justice: they want the police, the courts and
Fjellhoy’s creditors to recognise that what happened to them was a crime, not
merely the consequence of them being naive or bad with money, or pathetically
romantic, or even “gold-diggers, prostitutes”, two accusations the internet hurled at
them in the wake of the VG article. (“The gold-digger stamp I think is so funny,”
says Fjellhoy. “I’m bankrupt! I’m the worst gold-digger in the world.”)
I ask if they hate Leviev. “To be honest, yeah, I do,” says Sjoholm, “and I don’t hate
people. He is so sick. He doesn’t think he’s done something wrong. He thinks he’s
entitled to do this.” When she ­realised he was conning her, she sent him texts
accusing him and he responded with outrage, ­self-pity, threats. When the police
arrested Leviev, he issued a lawsuit for defamation against Sjoholm and Fjellhoy
from jail. “I think he’s the only person in the world I genuinely hate,” ­Sjoholm says.
Fjellhoy says she’s angrier with the banks and establishments who let him keep on
getting away with fraud; also, with the people who surrounded him, including Peter
the bodyguard, and the ­rotating cast of women – friends, ex-girlfriends – who often
accompanied Leviev, giving him an added sheen of respectability. What was their
deal? “I am interested to know how he’ll respond to the film,” Fjellhoy tells me. “He
might be angry, but this is a man who loves attention…” So it might just feel like a
massive wave of delicious international attention to him? “Yes!”
I leave with the distinct impression that this really could have happened to any of
us. Never mind how quick we are to protest we’re somehow immune, and to
formulate spurious theories as to why Fjellhoy and Sjoholm fell foul of a ­villain we
would have seen coming a mile off. We are merely one swipe, one slightly
precarious life stage, one text with a manipulative stranger away from a variation on
their situation, and we all know it, deep down.
The Tinder Swindler is on Netflix