She’s appearing on E4’s Celebs Go Dating – and yet Tinder Swindler victim Cecilie Fjellhoy has insisted she doesn’t feel like a celebrity and would like to show viewers ‘a different side to me’.
The London-based Norwegian tech designer, who starred on the Netflix documentary Tinder Swindler, where she claimed she was conned out of £200,000 by Simon Leviev, also confirmed she’s back on the dating app.
She told BBC Newsbeat that Celebs Go Dating is showing her ‘new things’, joking: ‘Because I’m known for picking bad people.’
Cecilie, 34, was one of Simon’s targets who opened up about her experience on the Netflix docu-series which followed a bid to track down the con artist – real name Shimon Hayut – who claimed to be the son of a diamond merchant.
She’s appearing on E4’s Celebs Go Dating – and yet Tinder Swindler victim Cecilie Fjellhoy (left) has insisted she doesn’t feel like a celebrity and would like to show viewers ‘a different side to me’. Pictured, the cast of this year’s Celebs Go Dating
The London-based Norwegian tech designer, who starred on the Netflix documentary Tinder Swindler, where she claimed she was conned out of £200,000 by Simon Leviev (pictured together), also confirmed she’s back on the dating app
Five years after her ordeal, Cecilie is ready for love again, revealing: ‘Dating for me has always been fun. And I always try to continue to have fun with it.’
The programme sees a cast of stars – often reality TV personalities – enjoy dates with people who aren’t celebrities.
‘I’m blessed that I’m able to do Celebs Go Dating and show a different side to me,’ said Cecilie.
On the show, Cecilie joins Laura Anderson – who recently split from her boyfriend Dane Bowers, Simon Cowell’s ex Sinitta and Hollyoaks actor Gary Lucy.
Cecilie told BBC Newsbeat that Celebs Go Dating is showing her ‘new things’, joking: ‘Because I’m known for picking bad people.’
Cecilie, 34, was one of Simon’s targets who opened up about her experience on the Netflix docu-series which followed a bid to track down the con artist – real name Shimon Hayut – who claimed to be the son of a diamond merchant
She also discussed Israel-based Leviev and said it’s ‘disheartening’ to see him walking around as a free man, explaining that she spotted him in a beach club in Tel Aviv.
Cecilie, who insisted she wasn’t scared of him, recalled how they looked at each other before she gave him a ‘little wave’ and they went their separate waves.
Shimon Heyada Hayut, from Israel, found notoriety after a 114-minute Netflix documentary exposed how he allegedly conned women he had met on Tinder out of an estimated £7.4 million by posing as the son of a billionaire diamond mogul.
Tinder Swindler Hayut operated under several aliases, including Simon Leviev, chief executive of LLD Diamonds and the son of Israeli-Russian billionaire Lev Leviev, a man Forbes once called the ‘King of Diamonds’.
The international conman would dazzle his victims with his apparently luxurious lifestyle of private jets, designer clothes and five-star hotels — before tricking them into giving him eye-watering sums.
The Tinder Swindler left his victims with suicidal feelings, crippling bank debts and the agony and humiliation of discovering their relationship with him was a sham
In a twisted Ponzi scheme, he would use the cash he stole from them to lure in his next target, lavishing them too with trips abroad, and with hundreds of red roses and tables in VIP clubs.
He left his victims with suicidal feelings, crippling bank debts and the agony and humiliation of discovering their relationship with him was a sham.
Hayut has denied all their allegations against him, claiming he is ‘not a fraud and not a fake’ but instead a ‘legitimate businessman’ who made his fortune by investing in Bitcoin.
In an interview on the U.S. TV programme Inside Edition, he insisted: ‘I’m not this monster. I was just a single guy that wanted to meet some girls on Tinder.’
Hayut’s criminal career began when as a teenager he used stolen cheques to buy a Porsche and pay for a pilot training course.
Hayut has denied all their allegations against him, claiming he is ‘not a fraud and not a fake’ but instead a ‘legitimate businessman’ who made his fortune by investing in Bitcoin
Although he was charged in 2012, he fled Israel on a stolen passport before his sentencing. Three years later, he was jailed for two years after defrauding three women in Finland.
In 2017, upon release from the prison, he legally changed his name to Simon Leviev. He was returned to Israel, to be re-charged and sentenced, but slipped out of the country for a second time.
This is when his elaborate con to trick the victims featured in the Netflix documentary began.
After impressing his targets with his supposed riches, gaining their trust and winning their hearts, he would claim that he was in danger owing to the violent nature of the diamond business.
He would send them pictures of his bodyguard ‘Peter’ supposedly bleeding from the head following what he said was a criminal attack.
Claiming he had to go underground to hide from his ‘enemies’, Hayut told his targets he was unable to use his credit cards because he could be traced.
In this way, he persuaded his victims to give him the cash he said he needed. They used high-interest loans and platinum credit cards to raise the money before handing it over to him in the belief it was the only way to ensure his enemies would not find him.
Convinced by the outrageous ploy — and certain his previous displays of wealth proved he was not short of cash — the victims always complied.
In 2018, Cecilie, travelled to Amsterdam with more than £20,000 in cash to give Hayut, thinking she was saving her boyfriend’s life.
He convinced her to pretend she worked for his fake firm on a vast salary, so she could increase her American Express allowance. She was left with debts of more than £200,000.
The other victims featured in the documentary, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte, also faced mounting debts from a carbon copy of the same scam.
Hayut was arrested for his original charges of fraud in 2019 after Miss Charlotte, who had become wise to his tricks, reported him to Interpol for using a fake passport in Greece.
He was extradited to Israel and, in December 2019, was sentenced to 15 months in prison, of which he served five.
He has since been living as a free man in Tel Aviv. Hayut has never been charged for the crimes outlined in the Netflix documentary.
Celebs Go Dating airs on E4 from 28 November.
