(AFP) — Israeli fraudster Simon Leviev, made famous by the Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler, has been released in Georgia after spending two months in custody pending extradition to Germany, his lawyer said Friday.
Leviev, 35, whose real name is Shimon Yehuda Hayut, rose to notoriety after investigative reports and media coverage exposed a pattern of romance fraud and financial crimes while German authorities pursued his extradition.
He was arrested at Batumi airport on September 15 on an Interpol red notice requested by Germany and has been held since in a penitentiary facility in the western city of Kutaisi.
Leviev was freed “without any conditions” after Germany withdrew its extradition request, his lawyer, Mariam Kublashvili, told journalists.
“The case against him was fully closed,” she said, adding that he was not required to post bail, sign any legal undertakings or accept travel restrictions.
She said German prosecutors had opened a case against Leviev following a complaint from a woman in Berlin who alleged that he defrauded her of up to 50,000 euros ($58,000) after meeting her on the dating app Tinder.
He had faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
It remains unclear why German authorities dropped the case, although Kublashvili attributed the decision to a “lack of evidence.”
Between 2017 and 2019, Leviev allegedly used Tinder to pose as a wealthy heir and trick women into advancing him large sums of money, which he never repaid.
His scheme became one of the most notorious examples of “catfishing” — creating a false online persona to lure victims into emotional and financial entanglements.
In Leviev’s case, the elaborate deception reportedly involved fake luxury lifestyles, bodyguards and private jets, making the scam unusually convincing and costly.
The Netflix documentary, released in 2022, recounted the stories of several of his alleged victims.
Netflix has said Leviev “ultimately defrauded victims in Norway, Finland and Sweden out of an estimated $10 million.”
