Cecilie Fjellhøy as featured in Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler.
Netflix
Just forward of Valentine’s Day, Netflix’s true crime documentary The Tinder Swindler is right here to showcase one of many final examples of on-line relationship gone improper.
The Tinder Swindler, now streaming on Netflix, tells the story of a person named Simon Leviev (born Shimon Hayut) who used the web relationship platform to satisfy girls, lure them with a lavish life-style of actual non-public jets and fancy inns (and a made-up faux id involving being the son of the CEO of a diamond firm) and ultimately con them into giving him cash by way of bank cards and loans.
Get the CNET Culture e-newsletter
Explore films, video games, superheroes and extra with CNET Culture. Delivered Tuesdays and Fridays.
Online romance scams aren’t unusual. In September, the FBI reported that its Internet Crime Complaint Center had obtained greater than 1,800 experiences referring to on-line romance scams in 2021 alone. Those complaints accounted for about $133.4 million in losses for folks deceived by scammers.
After realizing Hayut was a grifter and shedding tons of of hundreds of {dollars}, the three girls featured within the documentary — Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte — got down to try to put an finish to Hayut’s scams by working with regulation enforcement and journalists from a serious Norwegian newspaper known as VG.
Here’s an replace on Fjellhøy, Sjoholm, Charlotte and Hayut.
Shimon Hayut/Simon Leviev
The documentary experiences that after being arrested by Interpol in July 2019, Hayut was sentenced to fifteen months in jail for crimes dedicated in Israel. He solely served 5 months, nonetheless, and was launched due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After his launch, the documentary additionally stated Hayut had began an internet site providing enterprise recommendation, and from his social media accounts, did not appear to be hurting for cash. He’d even been seen again on Tinder. That’s now not the case, although. The relationship app stated it banned Hayut from its platform.
“We have carried out inner investigations and may affirm Simon Leviev is now not energetic on Tinder beneath any of his identified aliases,” Tinder stated in an announcement. The Independent reported Monday that Hayut deleted his Instagram account. The documentary estimates Hayut has managed to swindle about $10 million from folks all over the world.
Hayut was not reachable for remark.
Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte
The documentary confirmed the lengths Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte went to in working with journalists and regulation enforcement to catch Hayut and ideally forestall him from benefiting from different girls. At the top of The Tinder Swindler, the most recent replace on the trio was that they have been nonetheless making an attempt to repay their money owed. In an interview with British GQ, Sjoholm stated she was bankrupt and residing together with her mom. Over the weekend all three created a GoFundMe web page with a aim of elevating £600,000 ($811,206).
“The previous few days have been a whirlwind, and we three (Ayleen, Pernilla and Cecilie) have been utterly shocked and floored by the flood of compassion and assist from everybody,” they wrote within the fundraiser description. “All we wish are our lives again.”