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Editing: Nicholas Petrou Kapartis[/I]
Within hours, the story of Israeli con man Shimon,[/B] who impersonated the son of businessman Lev Leviev, became known around the world, who has a $1 billion fortune, was scamming women he knew through the Tinder app and extracting large sums of money.
The story of the Israeli - who played Simon Leviev a millionaire "diamond prince" - became known around the world through the Netflix documentary "The Tinder Swindler", which was released on February 2 and within 24 hours reached the top 10 in Cyprus, on the popular platform.
Of course, the "Tinder scammer" left his footprints in Cyprus as well, since after the screening of the documentary a British woman who had met him 14 years ago in our country found out that she was the first girl to fall into Shimon Hayut's
tentacles.[/B]
In summary, the Israeli was a serial scammer who used his charm to steal unsuspecting lonely women via the popular online dating app Tinder, which earned him the nickname "Tinder swindler".
Through this app he tricked women into paying him thousands of dollars by posing as the son of a billionaire Israeli diamond trader.
Meeting his first victim in Cyprus
In an article published yesterday, the British "The Sun" presents the story of 31-year-old British woman, Courtney Simmonds Miller, who lived in Cyprus 14 years ago with her grandfather and grandmother.
In 2008, Courtney, then 19, first met the Israeli fraudster when they worked together in a shop selling hair products in a shopping centre in Limassol.
The Israeli was then 20 years old and still called Shimon Hayut and together with Courtney they used to go out for drinks and dancing, and as the 31-year-old says, "usually failed to attract women".
"I was 100% smitten with him," the 31-year-old told The Sun, while noting that "when you meet the love of your life for the first time, you would do anything for him."
"That's how I felt in my friendship with Siman. He was constantly paying attention to me, constantly complimenting me. I thought he was my soul mate in the form of a friend and wanted to help me improve my life," she added.
"He kept telling me that he loved me and that I was his best friend so much that I withdrew from my friends and family," she added.
When Courtney realized Leviev was broke he claimed, during a phone call after he returned to his country, that he was an undercover millionaire.
He involved her in his scams by offering her a job
He claimed that his father had sent him to work in Cyprus in a low-income job to learn how money was made and that he would soon receive his inheritance and wanted to open a business in Cyprus. He even offered her to be his personal assistant with a salary of nearly £2,500 per month.
Although she was taken aback by what he said, Courtney was so enthusiastic about him that she immediately accepted his offer.
The first job he assigned Courtney, as his personal assistant, was to rent a luxury BMW so that he could go to his meetings in style.
He asked her to rent it in her own name with the excuse that he did not have an international driver's license. He read her his personal card details over a phone call and she proceeded with the rental of the luxury vehicle.
A few weeks later they received a call from the renter of the vehicle, who asked them to sort out certain documents and there it became apparent that the credit card used to rent the vehicle, had been stolen from Israel and after the Cypriot authorities were alerted the two persons were arrested.
Recalling what she experienced after her arrest, Courtney tells The Sun that she initially believed they were treated unfavourably by the Cypriot police because they were not citizens of the Republic of Cyprus.
"I spent three weeks in custody despite not being charged with a violent crime," she added."
The British High Commission arranged a lawyer for the Briton and her grandparents paid the money, while her parents paid 2,000 English pounds to bail her out. The Israeli "con man" paid his own bail when he secured 8 thousand pounds from a local rabbi.
The court took the passports of both individuals and issued an order forcing them to present themselves twice a week at a police station, however Shimon Hayut managed to leave the country illegally.
Courtney at that point realized that the whole thing about renting the vehicle and the jobs the Israeli was doing was all a scam, only to be caught on closed-circuit security cameras in order to blame her for the scams he was committing.
The British woman then gave a new statement to the Cypriot authorities about the Israeli's disappearance, but she had no idea of his whereabouts.
Two years later her drama ended
Her acquittal came two years later but the whole adventure she went through cost her family in excess of 14 thousand pounds.
Even after his disappearance, the "Tinder scammer" tried to get Courtney on his side, calling her on the phone claiming he was innocent, but she had realised she had suffered the ultimate betrayal.
She recognized him in a newspaper 10 years later
Almost a decade later, the British woman accidentally read an article in a newspaper in Norway that revealed the activities of the Israeli con man, who had deceived women he approached through the Tinder platform.
Courtney immediately recognized Shimon Hayut in the photos of the report showing him posing next to luxury cars, private jets, helicopters and stunning women.
"I endured all of this from him when I was just 20 years old, I can't imagine how much more of a seasoned con artist he has become after 10 years of experience," she stressed."
After all these years Courtney still struggles to trust her judgment after all she has been through.
He was handcuffed in 2019 in Greece
Simon Leviev, as he now calls himself, was arrested in Greece on June 28, 2019 with a fake passport and was temporarily housed at Korydallos Prison. He was then extradited to Israel. There he was sentenced to 15 months in prison, but was released very quickly due to good behavior, eventually serving only 1/3 of his sentence.
The "Tinder scammer" was never charged with embezzlement, and is estimated to have extorted 10 million from his victims around the world.
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
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