Simon Leviev, the Israeli fraudster made infamous by the Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler, has been arrested once again, this time in Georgia.
Leviev, born Shimon Yehuda Hayut, was detained on Sunday morning at Batumi International Airport, near the Black Sea. Georgia’s interior ministry confirmed the arrest, saying it was carried out following an Interpol Red Notice – an international alert issued at the request of a member country.
Officials have not disclosed which jurisdiction requested his detention or the specific charges he faces.
Leviev’s attorney told Israeli outlet Walla that he too had no clarity on why his client had been detained, claiming the 33-year-old had been “travelling freely around the world” in recent months.
Leviev first drew global attention in 2022 after a Netflix documentary detailed how he posed as the son of a wealthy Russian-Israeli diamond magnate to lure women on Tinder, before defrauding them of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The series alleged he used funds from one victim to bankroll his lavish lifestyle and seduce the next.
His criminal history, however, predates his streaming notoriety. He left Israel in 2011 to avoid sentencing for earlier fraud and forgery convictions, later serving time in Finland for defrauding several women.
In 2019 he was arrested in Greece on the basis of a separate Interpol notice, extradited to Israel and sentenced to 15 months in prison – but served only five, released early amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Leviev has since attempted to recast himself as a public figure, at one point charging fans for personalised video messages online.
