The notorious ‘Tinder Swindler’ was arrested by Georgian authorities on Sunday, officials in the former Soviet state said today.
Shimon Yehuda Hayut, 35, from Israel, was detained after landing at Batumi International airport.
The Georgian Interior Ministry said Hayut had been detained on a Red Notice from Interpol as he crossed the border into Georgia. It was not immediately clear which state had called for his arrest.
His attorney had earlier told Israeli media that the grounds for his arrest were unknown, even to them.
‘I spoke with him this morning after he was detained, but we don’t yet understand the reason,’ they said, adding: ‘He has been travelling freely around the world.’
Hayut, who operated under several aliases including Simon Leviev, was made infamous by a 2022 Netflix documentary claiming he conned women he met on Tinder out of an estimated £7.4million by posing as the son of a billionaire diamond mogul.
Netflix exposed how Hayut would match with a woman on Tinder before taking her out on a lavish first date. Accusers claim he would gain their trust before urgently messaging the women to say his credit card could not be used for security reasons and asking them to open a new one in their name for him to use.
Victims said they were left with suicidal feelings and crippling bank debts.
Hayut has denied all their allegations against him, claiming he is ‘not a fraud and not a fake’ but instead a ‘legitimate businessman’ who made his fortune by investing in Bitcoin.
He was convicted of four charges of fraud in 2019 and sentenced to 15 months of prison time in Israel, of which he served five.
Hayut was also ordered to pay victims around £35,000 in compensation, as well as a fine of around £4,600 for having a false passport.
In 2020, Hayut was then accused of pretending to be a medical worker to get a Covid vaccination while still not eligible, Channel 12 reported at the time.
The news channel claimed Hayut was denied a vaccine at a centre in Bnei Brak and then tagged on to a group of medical workers arriving to get their shots, allegedly claiming to be a paramedic.
‘The person was vaccinated after he presented himself as a medical worker,’ the health organisation said in a statement.
‘It is regrettable that there are people who are harming the trust shown by staff and we condemn this act.’
Four years later, and two after Netflix aired its explosive claims, a criminal complaint was launched against Hayut, as Ephraim and Ruthy Leviev Yelizarov claimed he had damaged the family reputation when Hayut impersonated their brother.
Norwegian graduate student Cecilie, who was 29 when she dated Hayut, claimed she gave him more than $270,000 over the course of their relationship, after they connected via Tinder in January 2018.
She explained in the Netflix doc that she was completely wooed by Hayut after he flew them from Bulgaria from London via a private plane for their first date.
It was claimed Hayut would shower the women he met on the dating app with expensive trips and opulent gifts, using the money he had taken from his other victims.
He would then allegedly ask them for funds – claiming he was in danger and needed money to protect his identity from people who were out to kill him due to his dangerous diamond business.
When Netflix released the doc in 2022, Hayut denied all of the claims made in the show and alleged that Netflix had twisted the story to make him look bad.
‘They presented it as a documentary but in truth it’s a completely made-up movie,’ he told Inside Edition at the time. ‘I’m the biggest gentleman in the world.
‘I am not this monster that everybody has created. I was just a single guy that wanted to meet some girls on Tinder.
‘They weren’t conned and they weren’t threatened. No, I am not, and I never presented myself the son of a billionaire diamond mogul.
‘I’m a legit businessman. I got into Bitcoin in 2011, it was nothing. I don’t need to say how much it is worth now.
‘I feel bad for something that I didn’t do? No, I feel bad for whatever happened to myself. I want to clear my name. I want to say to the world, this is not true.
‘I am not a fraud and I’m not a fake. People don’t know me, so they cannot judge me.’
In November 2024, another lawsuit was filed against Hayut following a complaint by his former acquaintance, Iren Tranov.
Tranov claims she lent him over 144,000 (£32,000) shekels in 2022 that he never repaid, and is suing for 414,000 shekels, the Jerusalem Post reports.
