‘Tinder Swindler’ Claimed to Be a Diamond Magnate’s Heir. Now the Real Family Is Suing Him

Simon Leviev, the so-called “Tinder Swindler,” is being sued by the diamond-rich family he claimed to be a part of as he allegedly bilked millions from young women he met on the dating app. 

The lawsuit was filed in the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court in Israel on behalf of the Leviev family, whose patriarch, Lev Leviev, is a billionaire diamond magnate. The website for the Leviev family’s lawyer, Guy Ophir, confirmed the suit had been filed.

While Ophir did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment, a portion of the lawsuit quoted on his firm’s website said of Simon Leviev: “He is a crook and deceiver who changed his name for criminal purposes, while identifying that he is a member of the Leviev family and taking the reputation of the complainants” (from Hebrew, via Google Translate).

A rep for Simon Leviev did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.

Ophir added in a statement that the lawsuit was just the first “in a series of legal proceedings that the Leviev family has instructed me to take against this crook and his accomplices.” He continued, “In the coming days a monetary claim will also be filed against the crook and anyone who has been involved in his past and present actions. Similarly, a lawsuit will be filed against the sites that chose to join the crook and allow him to sell paid greetings while exploiting his victims. The Leviev family intends to donate the money it obtains to its other victims” (from Hebrew, via Google Translate).

Simon Leviev — whose story was recently documented in the Netflix true-crime doc, The Tinder Swindler — was born Shimon Yehuda Hayut, and he fled Israel after being charged in 2011 with theft, forgery, and fraud. He spent nearly a decade traipsing around Europe and posing online as an heir to the Leviev diamond fortune, while convincing women to give him money he promised he would pay back, but never did. 

While he was convicted of defrauding three women in Finland in 2015 and served two years in prison, upon his release he appeared to pick up right where he started. Following a 2019 exposé in the Norwegian newspaper, VG, Leviev was arrested in Greece for using a forged passport; while he was sentenced to 15 months in prison in Israel, he was released after just five, reportedly for time served and good behavior. In a recent interview with Inside Edition, Leviev died the allegations against him and claimed, “I was just a single guy that wanted to meet some girls on Tinder.”

From Rolling Stone US.