‘Tinder Swindler’ suspect arrested in Georgia at Interpol request

A convicted con artist who was the subject of the 2022 Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler was arrested in Georgia on Monday after arriving at Batumi airport, Georgia’s interior ministry said.

Israeli national Shimon Yehuda Hayut, who has used the name Simon Leviev, was taken into custody at the request of Interpol, the ministry said. Authorities did not immediately provide details on the reason for the arrest.

Leviev, 34, rose to international notoriety after an investigative documentary alleged he carried out a string of romance frauds and other financial crimes estimated at about $10 million. The film said he had posed as the heir to a diamond mogul on the dating app Tinder, courting women with lavish gifts, private jets and luxury holidays before persuading them to transfer large sums of money under the pretext that he was being pursued by enemies and needed funds to escape.

Victims who spoke in the documentary and in subsequent interviews said the relationship-based scheme, which investigators say took place between 2017 and 2019, left them financially and emotionally devastated. One of the women featured in the series, Cecilie Fjellhøy, has said she gave Leviev more than $270,000 during their relationship. Another woman, Iren Tranov, filed a civil suit in Israel last year seeking 414,000 shekels, saying she had loaned Leviev more than 144,000 shekels that were not repaid.

Leviev has previously denied the allegations. He rejected the accusations made in the documentary when contacted by media, and told BBC Newsbeat that the film misrepresented him. In a separate account published in 2023, Kate Konlin, a former girlfriend, accused him of emotional and physical abuse; she said an argument resulted in a cut to her foot and that she filed a police complaint. Leviev has denied ever physically harming any woman.

In 2019, Leviev was convicted on four counts of fraud in a separate criminal case in Europe and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. He served about five months before release, according to reporting.

Following Monday’s detention in Georgia, Israeli news site Ynet quoted Leviev’s lawyer as saying the defendant had been “traveling freely around the world” and that the lawyer had spoken with him after the arrest but did not yet understand the reason for the detention.

The Tinder Swindler became a global hit when it was released by Netflix in February 2022, topping documentary charts in some 90 countries and prompting renewed scrutiny of online romance scams. The arrest in Georgia adds a new chapter to a case that has drawn attention from victims’ rights groups and law enforcement across multiple countries, though Georgian authorities have not disclosed whether the detention will lead to extradition proceedings or additional charges.

Interpol often issues notices to assist in locating and arresting individuals wanted for prosecution or to serve a sentence, but the agency did not immediately provide further comment. Georgian officials said further information would be released in line with investigative procedures.

As the case develops, legal representatives and courts in multiple jurisdictions may be involved in determining whether Leviev will be transferred, charged locally or face other legal action tied to allegations documented in recent years.