The crook of “ tinder swindler ”, Simon Levev, was arrested in Georgia

A condemned crook who was the subject of a popular documentary from Netflix in 2022, The Tinder Swindler, was arrested in Georgia, local officials said.

Israeli Simon Leviev was arrested at the request of Interpol after arriving at Batumi airport in the southwest of the country, the Interior Ministry of Georgia said on Monday.

Leviev, 34, has acquired a reputation after an investigation documentary discovered a series of romantic fraud and financial crimes, involving around $ 10 million (7.4 million pounds sterling).

He would have been the rich heir to a diamond magnate on the Tinder meeting application and defrauded women to lend him big sums of money, which he has never reimbursed. Leviev had previously denied allegations.

The authorities have not immediately provided details on the reason for the arrest of Leviev, the real name of which is Shimon Yehuda Hayut.

In 2019, Leviev was found guilty of four fraud counts in a separate case and sentenced to 15 months in prison, but he was released after having only served five months.

According to Israel’s website Ynet, his lawyer told journalists that Leviev had “traveled freely in the world”.

“I spoke with him this morning after his detention, but we do not yet understand the reason,” they said after his arrest in Georgia.

Between 2017 and 2019, the Leviev cat fishing program – creating a false online personality – involved attracting women to romantic relationships with an extravagant lifestyle of private jets and luxury vacation.

His victims shared their stories in the documentary series, saying that they had been courted by Leviev with glamorous gifts and escapades to gain their confidence.

They said that Leviev later claimed that he was prosecuted by his “enemies” and would ask them to transfer important sums of money to him before breaking all contacts.

Cecilie Fjellhøy, one of the women appearing in the Netflix series, said that she had given Leviev more than $ 270,000 during their relationship.

Last year, another Iren Tranov woman filed a complaint against Leviev in Israel for 414,000 shekels (£ 91,000), saying that she had lent him more than 144,000 shekels (£ 31,000) that he never reimbursed.

Leviev previously told BBC Newsbeat that he had firmly denied the charges against him in the documentary.

Addressing the BBC in 2023, Kate Konlin, a former girlfriend of Leviev’s, also accused her of emotional and physical violence while they were together.

During an argument, Ms. Konlin said that she had pushed her and that she had cut off a step with a rough edge.

“I was bleeding. I felt dead. I wanted to kill myself,” she said.

After going to the hospital, she filed a complaint against Leviev to the police.

Leviev then rejected the accusations and said he had never physically injured any woman.

The Swinder Swindler became the most watched documentary in Netflix in 90 countries when it was released in February 2022.