A would-be billionaire, private jet and 5-star hotel dates around the world, promises of marriage and cohabitation, and then monumental frauds leaving victims destroyed and ruined. What would be a good fictional script is instead a documentary telling the true story of a scammer operating on Tinder.
Expect to experience a range of intense and sometimes conflicting emotions while watching The Tinder Scammer (the French version of The Tinder Swindler). Broadcast on Netflix since February 2, the documentary recounts the painful experiences of three women who fell into the romantic – and financial – trap of the man who called himself Simon Leviev.
The man from Israel chose his victims on the dating application Tinder. Pretty easy when you’re handsome and your profile pictures show you traveling around the world, wearing designer clothes and driving overpriced cars. To explain his immense wealth, he claimed to be the son of a billionaire diamond tycoon. The perfect pretext to gently introduce, over his “love stories”, the threats and the danger he allegedly had to face on a daily basis. All part of a high-level con scheme devised by the one whose real name is Shimon Hayut.
Tension and Compassion
First there is the rhythm and the tension in a crescendo – like a detective film – which plunges the amazed spectator into this unimaginable story. Then the way in which the documentary uses compassion by presenting the victims as intelligent women, looking for a serious relationship and having had the misfortune only to believe in love and friendship.
We want to hug Cecilie, become friends with Pernilla and applaud the courageous Ayleen as we watch this film directed by Felicity Morris (producer of the documentary series A killer too viral, Dont F**k With Cats on the killer Luka Magnotta). Knowing that the evidence given to the journalists and then to the police officers who worked on the case consisted of several hundred pages of text, audio and video messages, we better understand the emotional hold that the man had established, little by little, on its victims.
If the story itself is fascinating, shocking and incredible, so are the lessons learned from it. Because many will realize, with emotion and a certain confusion, that this could have happened to them. How many women in love could have, like them, sent money to help out a frightened billionaire spouse, hunted down and in danger (photos of his bodyguard and him bloodied in support)? How many could have imagined never seeing the color of this large, very large sum of money advanced? And above all, how many people dreaming of true love could suspect that beings as cruel as Shimon Hayut could even exist? A documentary that will stay with us the next time we get ready to scan photos of possible beloved ones.
► The Tinder Scammer ★★★★
A documentary by Felicity Morris
Available on Netflix