In The Tinder Swindler, Simon Leviev scammed his victims by claiming he was the son of Diamond King Lev Leviev, but the truth about the Tinder Swindler’s real father is far more interesting. The Netflix documentary debuted on February 2, 2022, and quickly shot to number one in Netflix’s coveted Top 10, becoming the first documentary ever to do so. Over 50 million viewers have watched how Simon Leviev, the Tinder Swindler, stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the subjects of The Tinder Swindler, but those were not the only scams Leviev was pulling, and Simon Leviev’s real father may have helped him.
The Tinder Swindler follows the story of three women, Cecilie Fjellhoy, Pernilla Sjoholm, and Ayleen Charlotte, who all met Simon through the dating app, Tinder. Over the course of several months, Simon escorted the women on vacations on private jets, took them to fancy restaurants, and stayed with them at luxury hotels leading them to believe that he was the son of the diamond-industry leader, Lev Leviev. After the women were convinced of his wealth and status, he began pumping them for money, claiming that his life was in danger and they were the only ones who could save him.
Before the Tinder Swindler became Simon Leviev in 2017, however, his name was Shimon Hayut. Hayut is the Israeli-born son of Rabbi Yohanan Hayut, who has also been suspected of fraud. Simon Leviev’s real father, Yohanan Hayut, is said to have lured philanthropists and businesspeople into lucrative deals with the help of his son, Shimon Hayut, who he presented as a successful businessman, Simon Leviev.
In 2019, Toi Staff (via The Times of Israel) reported that “The chief rabbi of El Al Airlines, Rabbi Yohanan Hayut, has been questioned by police over suspicions that alongside his son, a notorious suspected conman, he defrauded hundreds of millions of shekels from business people.” One of the people targeted by Yohanan Hayut and the Tinder Swindler, Simon Leviev was Israeli-born New York philanthropist Rabbi Raymond Badush, head of the Congregation Ahavat Shalom charity. The elder Hayut is said to have befriended Badush in 2012 before striking up a lucrative money-making deal with him in which a wealthy and respected family would funnel money into Badush’s charity, which would then write checks to Rabbi Hayut, who would then return the cashback value to Badush.
The Hayuts used a familiar setup for the scam, with Yohanan Hayut wining-and-dining Badush during the early part of their friendship, leading Badush to believe Hayut was financially sound. Simon Leviev’s real father, Yohanan Hayut, claimed that the source of his money was the wealthy and respected Leviev family of LLD Diamonds, and then presented his son, Shimon Hayut, as Simon Leviev, who arrived at the meeting in a Ferrari. The father and son team would then use a dummy company (the Tapiro Group) to front the money to Badush, in turn cashing the checks and swearing to have already wired the money back to Badush. With so many details similar to the scams laid out in Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler, it seems the apple may not fall far from the tree.