The Tinder Swindler True Story: The Real LLD Diamonds Explained

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Netflix's recently released The Tinder Swindler shed some light on Simon Leviev's tactics as a conman who acted as the heir to the billion-dollar company LLD Diamonds, however, one of the questions in the audience's mind was whether the company truly exists. The company and its founder Lev Leviev found themselves to be at the center of a very serious story involving online fraud, which started when an Israeli conman Shimon Hayut changed his legal name to Simon Leviev in 2017, at a time when he was fleeing Israel to avoid being sentenced for fraud. Despite being known for his exploits during his time posing as Simon Leviev, Shimon has been facing charges of fraud and theft long before that, since his first arrest had been in 2011.

The true story of the Tinder Swindler Shimon Hayut began with him traveling around Europe after his escape from Israel in 2017 while making a new persona for himself on Tinder as Simon Leviev, the son, and heir to the Russian-Israeli businessman Lev Leviev, also known as the 'King of Diamonds'. Through this persona, he was able to gain the trust of many women who he met using Tinder. With the money that had reportedly been obtained through previous cons, he treated these women to lavish and expensive hotel trips for several months, shortly before he started manipulating them to send him money. As shown in The Tinder Swindler, the scheme worked mostly because he had given the women fake trust that he would be able to repay them while also presenting a fake threat to his life that elevated the urgency for them to send the money. The women, including Cecilie Fjellhoy have since started a GoFundMe page to tackle the debt that they now have to address.

Related: Who Is Simon Leviev's New Girlfriend?

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