A DECADE has passed since Cecilie Fjellhoy and Pernilla Sjoholm’s lives were turned around by a man they knew as Simon Leviev.
Posing as a billionaire diamond heir, he conned them an d countless others out of millions .
While the Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler brought their story to the world, the women he affected say the aftermath and the long road to recovery were far more difficult than anyone could have imagined.
“I’m still traumatised,” Cecilie, 36, tells The Times .
She reveals that “no victim” should be placed into a courtroom and be forced to defend themselves.
Between 2017 and 2019, he posed as Simon, a 31-year-old and the fictional son of billionaire Lev Leviev, to swindle women all over Europe .
After changing his name from Shimon Hayut, Simon Leviev used Tinder to seduce and con women out of an estimated £7.4 million.
He falsely claimed to be the son of “King of Diamonds,” Lev Leviev, and spun stories about his enemies freezing his bank accounts or attacking his bodyguard, Piotr, to persuade the women to give him their savings or take out loans.
Leviev was a wanted man in several European countries, having fled Israel in 2011 to avoid fraud charges.
In 2019, he was arrested in Greece for using a fake passport and extradited to Israel .
He faced charges for fraud, theft, and forgery, but none of these charges were related to his Tinder scheme or his other alleged crimes abroad.
After fleeing Israel to avoid fraud charges from his early 20s, Leviev moved to Finland where he began the Tinder scheme.
He had previously served two years in a Finnish prison for defrauding three women and was released in 2017.
He briefly returned to Israel but escaped before he could be captured again. When he was finally arrested in 2019, it was for the forgery, theft, and fraud charges he had previously faced.
He was sentenced to 15 months in prison but was released after just five months due to good behavior.
Cecilie was conned into taking out nine loans totaling $250,000 (£190,000), and was hounded by creditors to the point where she contemplated suicide.
Suicide
She eventually sought help at a psychiatric unit and has spent the last seven years in therapy .
She “never wanted to be on” antidepressants but explains that she “needed them.”
Due to being hit with a lawsuit by creditors and police barging into her home, Cecilie needed to be on antidepressants.
Pernilla, 38, also contemplated suicide after learning the truth about the man she considered a friend.
He’s really angry with all the successes that we have had
Cecilie Fjellhoy
She lost the $45,000 (£33,840) she had saved for a home deposit and then doubled that amount in legal fees when she tried to take her bank to court .
The fallout from the exposé in a Norwegian newspaper led to death threats from Leviev, leaving her questioning not only “what I would do to myself; I didn’t know what Simon might try to do to me.”
But today, the women are finally reclaiming their power.
The enormous reach of the Netflix documentary made Leviev a recognisable figure, effectively ending his con.
“He’s really angry with all the successes that we have had,” Cecilie says.
“I think he really wanted us to be miserable for the rest of our lives.”
Instead, they’ve become fierce advocates for victims of romance fraud.
They now travel the world giving talks about online safety, and Pernilla has even co-founded an identity verification platform.
The goal
Their new book, Swindled Never After: How We Survived (and You Can Spot) a Relationship Scammer, is an unflinching look at their journey, complete with online safety tips and expert insights.
The goal, they say, is to change the laws and fight the victim-shaming that so often follows these crimes.
Pernilla is now a mother to two-year-old twins and has moved on, refusing to let Leviev “continue to defraud me” by consuming her life with anger.
Cecilie, who says she still “loves love,” has also returned to dating , albeit with a new sense of caution.
She’s not worried about being financially duped again, as, “There’s nothing left. I’m bankrupt. I can’t even get a credit card.”
While his victims continue to pay off the massive debts he left them with, Leviev is living as a free man in Israel, seemingly without any financial issues.
He is rumoured to be dating an Israeli model, Kate Konlin, and his private Instagram account, with over 284,000 followers, is filled with photos of a lavish lifestyle, including helicopters and expensive dinners.
Leviev has even reinvented himself as a real estate mogul and offers classes in business education.
Tinder has stated that they have banned Leviev from their app and that he is not on it under any known alias.
How to protect yourself from fraud
USE the following tips to protect yourself from fraudsters.
- Keep your social media accounts private – Think twice before you your share details – in particular your full date of birth, address and contacts details – all of this information can be useful to fraudsters.
- Deactivate and delete old social media profiles – Keep track of your digital footprint. If a profile was created 10 years ago, there may be personal information currently available for a fraudster to use that you’re are not aware of or you have forgotten about.
- Password protect your devices– Keep passwords complex by picking three random words, such as roverducklemon and add or split them with symbols, numbers and capitals.
- Install anti-virus software on your laptop and personal devices and keep it up to date – This will make it harder for fraudsters to access your data in the first place.
- Take care on public Wi-Fi– Fraudsters can hack or mimic them. If you’re using one, avoid accessing sensitive apps, such as mobile banking.
- Think about your offline information too – Always redirect your post when you move home and make sure your letter or mailbox is secure.
