A true crime documentary worth the watch
Where a romantic fairy tale ends a revenge thriller began. The Tinder Swindler was released on Feb. 2 on Netflix. It was directed by Felicity Morris and produced by Bernadette Higgins and has continuously made the Top 10 chart for three weeks in a row. The main cast consisted of Cecilie Fjellhoy, Pernilla Syoholm, Ayleen Charlotte and Simon Leviev. This documentary tells the real-life story of Simon Leviev’s (Shimon Hayut) who posed as a wealthy son of the King of Diamonds who owned LLD Diamonds. Leviev seduced and conned numerous Finnish women out of large sums of money from around the world and it all started on the popular dating app, Tinder.
Do you enjoy watching true crime, horror stories of online dating apps or an intriguing movie in general? Then this is a must watch documentary.
It starts off with Cecilie, who is swiping on Tinder and matches with a handsome billionaire playboy, Simon Leviev. She can’t believe it when he turns out to be the man of her “dreams.” The plot started when Leviev told Cecilie his enemies had frozen his bank accounts and in the coming weeks the enemies attacked his bodyguard, Piotr.
Over this time frame, Leviev asked Cecilie to use her savings to help him by taking out loans, order credit cards with fake names with her funds on it and when it would max out, she would have to send him another card, book plane tickets for himself and others and book hotel rooms all on her personal savings.
A plot twist occurred while Cecilie and Leviev were talking. He began a Tinder relationship with another woman, Pernilla Sjoholm, simultaneously. Leviev used the same scan and excuses on Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte, to have them help him with money troubles and hiding from his so-called enemies.
To each of the women he would tell them that he promised to pay them back but it was always with either fake designer watches, dodgy checks or incomplete bank transfers.
This documentary in my opinion was an impactful eye opener as it shows the viewer you don’t really know someone, especially on an online dating app.
You can face many hardships and be left with lifelong financial and mental impacts.
I give this documentary an 8/10 because it was a bit repetitive after the first hour, but the content was good.
I liked how the documentary reached out to the women and got their perspective of what occurred to them and to also Shimon to see where he is now. The way the media team worked to get the real footage was very impressive.
I believe when using a dating app, one must always be careful about sharing any personal information and must investigate the person a bit deeper than just what their Tinder profile states. As a viewer, I was able to see that in the end, Tinder cannot be blamed for this issue, it is solely the individuals on the app who make the mistakes.
