ON her quest to find love, Pernilla Sjoholm’s lost thousands after swiping right on Simon Leviev.
Now she’s speaking out about her ordeal as one of the stars on Netflix’s new true crime documentary ‘The Tinder Swindler’.
1
Who is Pernilla Sjoholm?
In her quest for love, Pernilla Sjoholm inadvertently became involved with a conman named Simon Leviev (real name Shimon Hayut).
Simon allegedly scammed a series of women under his alias and would use the money he got from various women to go on high-end dates that at time included on private-jet rides and luxury hotel stays.
He is accused of using this as a tactic to gain their trust before asking them for large sums with the promise of paying them back.
The Swedish business owner had just split from her fiance when she fell for the fraudster.
She had know idea about Simon’s lies until she was contacted by media.
He later threatened her, saying: “If you double cross me, you will pay for the rest of your life.”
Most read in The Sun
She responded: “I am paying for it.”
Her story, as well as the experiences of Cecilie Fjellhoy,and Ayleen Charlotte, are shared in the 2022 Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler.
As of February of 2022, Hayut has not been charged with defrauding Fjellhoy, Sjoholm, or Charlotte.
“I think that it is incredibly hard for the women,” director Felicity Morris said to Vanity Fair.
What happened between Pernilla Sjoholm and Simon Leviev?
Pernilla swiped right on conman Simon Leviev in March 2018 while she was living in Sweden.
At the same time, he was dating Cecilie Fjellhøy who had also met him on the dating app in January 2018.
Simon had told the women he was the son of diamond tycoon Lev Leviev.
She parted with significant amounts of cash, and only found out when she was contacted by journalists investigating him.
How much did Pernilla Sjoholm lose?
Leviev, who legally changed his name from Shimon Hayut to solidify his ruse as the son of the “King of Diamonds”, seduced women on Tinder and conned them out of money.
Sjoholm says she gave Simon at least $45,000 and it is believed Fjellhoy lost more than $200,000.
He told them his enemies had frozen him out of his bank accounts or attacked his bodyguard, Piotr, asking the women to use their savings to help him or take out loans to support him.
It’s estimated that he conned them out of around £7.4million in total.
What has Pernilla Sjoholm said on the Tinder Swindler?
he tricked women across Europe between 2017 and 2019.
In an interview once the show aired, Pernilla told 9Honey: “With all the trauma that happened afterwards… It’s very surreal.”
The women have since launched a GoFundMe to try and recover some of the money they lost.
Sympathetic watchers of the show have so far donated nearly £17,000 of the £600,000 target, just 24 hours after it was created.
The description reads: “You’re probably here because you’ve heard about our story, and we appreciate you taking the time to search and find this page.
“The past few days have been a whirlwind, and we three (Ayleen, Pernilla and Cecilie) have been completely shocked and floored by the flood of compassion and support from everyone.
“The sheer love is more than we ever expected, and we appreciate you all so much,” it continued.
Tinder has said that Simon Leviev is not on their app under any known alias.
