Following its streaming debut on Netflix in February, the British true crime documentary The Tinder Swindler became a huge hit for the service, to the point where the controversial and often infuriating subject matter quickly sparked reports that a dramatized adaptation was in development. Things haven’t been quite so hunky dory for the scheming manipulator that the doc’s title refers to, however. The Israel-born Shimon Hayut, who used the alias Simon Leviev to bilk various women out of millions of dollars, is not only facing a huge lawsuit from the diamond mogul family he falsely claimed to be part of, but he also found himself the victim of an online scam that had nothing to do with the Netflix project.
It appears as if Simon Leviev (the name he continues to go by publicly) was contacted on Instagram by a female with a verified profile who claimed that she would be able to secure verification for both Leviev and his girlfriend Kate Konlin. According to TMZ, the woman said that her boyfriend was an employee of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns Instagram, and that he’d be the one putting things in motion.
It’s around this point when Simon Leviev apparently had a Facetime meeting with the boyfriend, and that call seemed to really sell the idea that things were completely legitimate. It’s said that the boyfriend was located in a busy office setting, with other “employees” walking around behind him and adding to the illusion that he was indeed within the…
