‘Tinder swindler’ released from prison early, infuriating fraud victims
An Israeli man who defrauded women across Scandinavia out of
hundreds of thousands of dollars by presenting himself on the dating app Tinder
as the son of a wealthy oligarch was released from prison in Israel after
finishing five months of a 15 month sentence, infuriating his fraud victims,
according to a Friday report.
Shimon Hayut, known colloquially as the “Tinder swindler,”
was imprisoned in December 2019 by the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court.
The Ynet news site earlier this month reported that Hayut
had met conditions for release under a program aimed at reducing the prison
population amid fears of a coronavirus outbreak among inmates, despite fears
that Hayut would attempt to escape authorities again.
It wasn’t immediately clear exactly when he had been
released.
Hayut fled to Europe to escape charges in Israel twice
before his 2019 arrest and imprisonment.
Stockholm resident Pernilla Sjoholm, who said Hayut
defrauded her, said she received word of his release from a friend.
“I was in shock from the decision to release him. I’m really
disappointed by [Israel’s] justice system which gives a man like that a reduced
sentence. He deceived people and left prison after five months? Did you go
crazy in Israel?” Sjoholm told Channel 12 in an interview published in Hebrew.
“How can you give trust to a man like that, who escaped from
Israel twice? A man that deceived and swindled women in Europe for hundreds of
thousands of euros. Where is the justice?” she said.
A Finnish woman, identified by the initial, “D,” said Hayut
had conned her out of 45,000 euros ($49,000).
“I’m a single mom to a daughter and I gave him all the
savings I had. It’s a disgrace that they released him from prison. I hope he
gets the coronavirus. I hope he dies. That’s better, so he won’t hurt other
women,” she told Channel 12.
“He’s a bad person, and I haven’t been able to rebuild my
life because of him to this day. Myself and some other women filed lawsuits
against him with the European Court of Justice and submitted complaints against
him with Interpol,” she said.
Another woman, identified by the initial “A,” said that she
and others had lawsuits ready to file against Hayut.
“Private investigators and Interpol people are waiting for
him to leave Israel to arrest him,” she said. “He ruined my life and shattered
me emotionally and financially. I will never forgive him in my life for what he
did to me. He will pay dearly for his actions and we will make sure he will go
to prison for many years. I thought there was law in Israel, but your justice
system, unfortunately, encourages acts of fraud.”
“When I heard that he was being released I felt like I had
been stabbed in the back. People like him cannot be released under any
circumstances and it’s clear to me that he will try to escape again,” she said.
When he was sentenced, Hebrew media reports said that after
time served was deducted from his sentence and assuming early release for good
behavior, which is common practice in Israel, he could have been released after
serving only two months of his sentence.
During his sentencing hearing, Hayut told the court that he
was “sorry about everything” he had done and promised to “pay my debt to
society,” the Ynet news site reported.
In addition to the sentence, he was ordered to pay his
victims NIS 150,000 ($43,289) and to pay a fine of NIS 20,000 ($5,771) under
the terms of a plea deal that he reached with prosecutors after being convicted
of four fraud charges.
Hayut was extradited back to Israel in October 2019, after
fleeing the country in 2017 to avoid trial for various fraud-related offenses.
During that period, he roamed around Europe, presenting himself as Simon
Leviev, the son of Russian-Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev. He used the dating
app Tinder to contact women as Leviev and tricked them into loaning him money that
he never repaid.
The 30-year-old Bnei Brak native was arrested over the
summer in Greece for using a fake passport after a joint operation between
Interpol and Israel Police.
He had previously been charged with theft, forgery and fraud
in 2011, for cashing stolen checks. According to reports, Hayut stole a
checkbook belonging to a family while babysitting their child, and another’s
while working as a handyman at their home.
But he fled Israel before his sentencing, settling in
Finland. In 2015, Finnish authorities charged him with defrauding three women,
and sentenced him to two years in jail. In 2017, he was returned to Israel,
where he was to to be re-charged and sentenced, but Hayut assumed a different
identity and fled the country.
Israel declared him a wanted fugitive, and police appealed
for help from international authorities to help secure his return. Hayut is
also wanted for various fraud and forgery offenses by Norway, Sweden and the
United Kingdom.
According to an investigative report by Norway’s Verdens
Gang newspaper, Hayut conned women in Norway, Finland and Sweden out of
hundreds of thousands of dollars using a Ponzi scheme.
Dubbing him “the Tinder swindler,” the report said Hayut
would charm women with lavish gifts and take them to dinners on private jets
using money he borrowed from other women he previously conned. Then, citing
security concerns related to his business, he’d ask them for financial favors
he promised to pay back.
Hayut also used other people to make his claims more believable,
and surrounded himself with a fake bodyguard, business partners and more. He
even officially changed his name to Leviev, so his driver’s license and
passport would match his story.
Hayut had previously denied all of the allegations against
him, telling Channel 12 in an interview several months ago that all the women
who have accused him of fraud and theft did so for personal reasons.
“Maybe they didn’t like being in a relationship with me, or
the way that I act,” he said. “Maybe their hearts were broken during the
process.”
“I never took a dime from them; these women enjoyed
themselves in my company, they traveled and got to see the world on my dime,”
Hayut claimed.
Last year, Channel 12 reported that Hayut’s father, El Al
Airlines chief rabbi Yohanan Hayut, was questioned by police over suspicions
that he had defrauded hundreds of millions of shekels from business people in
collaboration with his son.
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