A convicted fraudster featured in the 2022 Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler” has been arrested in the former Soviet republic of Georgia on an Interpol warrant, local officials said.
Simon Leviev, whose real name is Shimon Yehuda Hayut, was arrested after landing at Batumi International Airport on Sunday, the BBC reported, citing Georgia’s Interior Ministry.
The 34-year-old Israeli citizen was detained in Georgia under an Interpol “red notice” — a global request to locate and provisionally arrest someone based on a foreign arrest warrant, pending extradition or similar legal action.
An attorney for Hayut confirmed the arrest Monday, telling Israeli media that his client had been taken into custody while “traveling freely around the world,” according to The Guardian.
On Tuesday, Sagiv Rotenberg told The New York Times that Hayut was detained in Georgia at Germany’s request, after several hours of questioning, over allegations he defrauded a woman in Berlin.
A court in Georgia ruled he would be held in jail for three months, or until he’s extradited to Germany.
Hayut gained international notoriety after allegedly posing as the son of Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev on the dating app Tinder and defrauding at least a dozen women worldwide of an estimated $10 million.
His alleged catfishing scheme, which ran from 2017 to 2019, was featured in Netflix’s hit documentary. Hayut has strongly denied the allegations made against him, maintaining he’s a “legitimate businessman.”
In July 2019, Hayut was arrested at Athens International Airport in Greece for using a forged passport. He was later extradited to Israel to face charges of fraud, forgery and theft in an unrelated case.
He was sentenced to 15 months in prison in December 2019 but was released five months later because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
