In present times, no one is a stranger to the concept of online dating. With several apps coming into action, online dating has reached new heights. For some, bumping into a stranger can be like a fairytale but for others it can become a nightmare. That very nightmare is the theme behind Netflix’s new documentary, The Tinder Swindler. The true-crime documentary is one of the most wildest ones on the streaming platform in the recent years. It follows three women who fell into the trap a con man through the dating app, Tinder and lost thousands of dollars.
The Tinder Swindler Plot
Shimon Hayut, an Israeli man, travelled around Europe posing as the son of Russian-Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev. He posed as Simon Leviev on the dating app Tinder and duped women into lending him money, which he never repaid. He would entice women with extravagant gifts and fly them to dinners on private jets with money he had stolen from other women he had defrauded. Later, he would pretend that he was being pursued by his “enemies,” sending the same messages and photographs to each woman, claiming that he had been attacked with a knife and that his bodyguard had protected him but was injured.
He then urged his victims to assist him financially as a result of the breach of ‘security,’ which reportedly prevented him from using his credit cards and bank accounts; the women would frequently take out bank loans and new credit cards to assist him. He’d then use the money he’d made from the lie to entice new victims, thus running a Ponzi scam. He would then pretend to reimburse his victims by providing fraudulent paperwork claiming to show false bank transfers before cutting off communication with them.
Netflix to make a movie on the same plot
Netflix is in talks with producers in order to use the plot to make a full length movie, as confirmed by Variety. The conversation regarding the dramatization is still in early stage and no concrete information regarding it is not yet announced. As per one of the producers of the 90-minute long documentary, there is more to the story which can be incorporated in a proper full length movie.
Till then, take a peek into the documentary trailer to have a deeper understand of the plot and scenarios:
The series is directed by Felicity Morris, who has also directed the Netflix documentary series Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, a story of a group of people who start an online quest to find a sadistic individual who posted videos of himself killing cats. Barbaric and gruesome, but yeah.