The Tinder Swindler - What We Know So Far
Two things the world can't get enough of are stories about grifters and stories about online dating nightmares. A new documentary coming to Netflix next year combines the two. It's called "The Tinder Swindler," and we're predicting it'll be a hit.
Netflix is one of culture's foremost homes of juicy true crime stories, and this one seems like a perfect fit for the streaming service's distinctive true crime offerings. It's the story of Israeli con artist Shimon Hayut, who used the titular dating app to meet the women whom he would go on to defraud of hundreds of thousands of dollars during a crime spree across Europe, posing as the son of a billionaire. He pleaded guilty to fraud charges in Israel in late 2019, and served five months of a 15-month sentence, according to the Times of Israel.
Here's what we know so far about the documentary movie "The Tinder Swindler," including the release date, who's behind it, and the story it tells.
What is The Tinder Swindler's release date?
Netflix's official Twitter account says "The Tinder Swindler" is premiering in February 2022. The specific date is to be announced. "You'll never 'swipe right' the same again after watching this new film... that tells the jaw-dropping story of a prolific conman who posed as a billionaire playboy on Tinder, and the women who set out to bring him down," according to the tweet.
"The Tinder Swindler" was announced as part of Netflix's upcoming true crime slate. The slate also includes the documentary "Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King," which investigates the mysterious death of cryptocurrency millionaire Gerry Cotten, which is coming sometime in 2022, as well as "The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman," a twisty three-part docuseries that's coming in January, and "Tiger King 2," a limited series coming in November which offers an update on the shocking story of exotic animal industry players Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin that gripped the world last year.
What's The Tinder Swindler's cast and crew?
"The Tinder Swindler" is about Shimon Hayut, who will presumably appear in news footage and possibly in interviews to tell his side of the story. There will also presumably be interviews with law enforcement agents who investigated him, journalists who covered the story, and some of the women he ripped off. But we can't say exactly what form the documentary will take, as no trailer has been revealed yet.
The documentary is produced by Raw TV, the company behind riveting documentary hits "Three Identical Strangers" and "Don't F*** with Cats," according to Variety. It's directed by Felicity Morris, who produced "Don't F*** with Cats," a true crime limited series that came out on Netflix in 2019. It's produced by Bernadette Higgins and executive produced by Bart Layton and Sam Starbuck for Raw TV, Jeff Gaspin and Eric Levy for Gaspin Media, and Stuart Ford and Lourdes Diaz for AGC Studios.
What's the plot of The Tinder Swindler?
"The Tinder Swindler" will follow the contours of Shimon Hayut's crimes and trial, sourcing heavily from Norwegian news outlet VG's reporting on him in the feature also called "The Tinder Swindler."
According to the Times of Israel, Hayut fled Israel in 2017 to avoid facing trial for various fraud-related charges and went to Europe. For the next two years, he traveled around Scandinavia posing as Simon Leviev, the son of Russian-Israeli diamond industry billionaire Lev Leviev.
He met women on Tinder, and ran a Ponzi scheme on them, wooing them with expensive gifts, extravagant dinners, and private jet flights he paid for with money he'd stolen from previous women. Then he'd ask to borrow money from them because for security reasons he couldn't use his own money at the moment, but he'd pay them back when it was safe. Then he'd start the cycle over with a different woman. He was very committed to the scam, going so far as to hire bodyguards to make himself seem more credible. He even legally changed his last name to "Leviev."
He was arrested in Greece in 2019, and sentenced to 15 months in prison.