Simon Leviev, whose real name is Shimon Hayut, is at the center of the Netflix documentary, The Tinder Swindler.
He is accused of scamming women out of their money by posing as a wealthy diamond trader.
Leviev is speaking out for the first time in a new interview with his model girlfriend by his side. The 31-year-old denies being The Tinder Swindler.
Leviev has taken advantage of his newfound fame, even having aspirations of embarking on a Hollywood career.
Following the release of the Netflix doc, he has been banned from using several dating apps but has maintained his innocence.
Simon Leviev says he is not a Tinder Swindler
In his first on-camera interview, Leviev denies the accusations made in the documentary.
“I was just a single guy that wanted to meet some girls on Tinder,” Simon Leviev told Inside Edition in a snippet of an upcoming interview. “I am not a Tinder swindler,” he added.
“They present it as a documentary, but in truth, it’s like a complete made-up movie,” he said in another clip obtained by Entertainment Weekly.
Leviev is accused of conning an estimated $10 million out of women he met through Tinder.
Three of those women — Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjöholm, and Ayleen Charlotte described their experience dating Leviev in the Netflix hit documentary and subsequent interviews.
They say he claimed to be the son of Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev and took them on lavish dates to earn their trust before conning them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
On The Tinder Swindler, Leviev appeared to run a Ponzi dating scheme by using money he swindled from one victim to spend on his next target.
In December 2019, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison after being caught traveling with a fake passport.
He was convicted of fraud, theft, and forgery but was released after five months on good behavior.
Tinder Swindler’s alleged victims launch a fundraising campaign
The three women featured in the Netflix documentary Ayleen, Pernilla, and Cecilie have started a joint GoFundMe campaign.
Leviev was never convicted on the allegations that he defrauded the women in the documentary, and they are still paying back the debt they accrued after he allegedly convinced them to give him their money.
In the GoFundMe, they released the following joint statement.
“After careful consideration, and many chats, we have decided to start this GoFundMe fundraiser. So many people reached out to us asking if we had one, and it hadn’t occurred to us to make one prior to this. However, we’ve spotted plenty of fakes, which makes us uneasy, the statement reads, continuing:
“We don’t want more people getting defrauded. We realise there are a thousand other worthy causes to donate to, and remain forever grateful if you choose to donate to this one. All we want are our lives back.”