Man Known as the ‘Tinder Swindler’ Is Arrested in Georgia

Europe|Man Known as the ‘Tinder Swindler’ Is Arrested in Georgia

An Israeli man who was accused of swindling money out of women he met online and was the subject of the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler,” has been detained in Georgia, on the request of Germany, over accusations that he defrauded a woman in Berlin, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

The man, Shimon Hayut (also known as Simon Leviev), 34, dazzled his Tinder dates with whirlwind romances involving jaunts on private jets and stays at five-star hotels, before conning them out of millions of dollars, according to the 2022 Netflix documentary.

Mr. Hayut impersonated an oligarch’s son and then established lines of credit and loans in the names of women he met on dating apps, before disappearing, according to the documentary.

Mr. Hayut, who has at least five different aliases, was arrested in 2019 and sentenced to 15 months in prison in Israel for fraud. He was released from prison five months later. Channel 12, an Israeli television station, estimated that he swindled about $10 million from women between 2017 and 2019.

The German allegations stem from accusations that Mr. Hayut defrauded a woman in Berlin from 2017 to 2019, according to Interpol documents seen by The New York Times.

According to the documents, prosecutors in Germany have accused Mr. Hayut of stealing nearly 44,000 euros (about $52,000) from the woman and of incurring thousands of dollars of expenses using a credit card and a phone contract in her name. The woman also paid nearly 9,000 euros (about $10,600) for hotel and flights for him in the Cayman Islands, after he told her his credit card was blocked, and she was never repaid, according to the allegations.

Mr. Hayut has denied the allegations and does not understand why Germany did not request his interrogation or extradition directly from Israel, according to Mr. Rotenberg, his lawyer.

“He is being held in extremely harsh conditions of detention without proper nutrition and is handcuffed most of the time,” Mr. Rotenberg said of his client, whom he spoke with on Tuesday. Mr. Rotenberg said that his client had not been charged with any crime in Germany.

Mr. Hayut has seven days to appeal the Georgian court’s ruling, according to documents issued by the Batumi City Court.

Mr. Rotenberg said his client had been traveling freely in recent years. “He was in Dubai, in Europe, in other places in Eastern Europe,” he said. “He didn’t get arrested. He didn’t have any problems.”

Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting from Moscow.