Girl states a person she came across on Tinder swindled her out of $200K: ‘He did not simply dump you, he never ever existed’
Cecilie Fjellhoy thought she had met her prince charming in the beginning.
Just exactly How A israeli conman’s alleged victim states he swindled her out of $200K
Cecilie Fjellhoy thought she had been met by her prince charming whenever she matched on Tinder with Simon Leviev.
Fjellhoy, a 29-year-old Norwegian masters pupil located in London, stated she ended up being swept off her foot to their very first date, including a plane that is private to Bulgaria. Fjellhoy said Leviev informed her he had been A israeli millionaire whom called himself the “Prince of Diamonds.”
“I became texting my buddies in the exact same time like in an organization talk similar to, ‘I’m not sure what are you doing,'” she stated.
Exactly what began as a storybook love changed into a real-life nightmare, Fjellhoy said – one that delivered her into debt and fearing on her security. It is a cautionary tale in the risks of online dating sites.
“we hate him, he is therefore terrible,” she stated. “we have always been simply fed up with crying about that you realize? It is simply so painful. I recently hate myself that i did so this.”
View the complete tale on “Nightline” TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET
Leviev came to be Shimon Hayut, a 28-year-old convicted con-man that is israeli served 3 years in Finnish jail for defrauding a few ladies in purchase to invest in their luxurious life style of private jets and quick vehicles, which Fjellhoy said he adored to demonstrate down.
Fjellhoy said Hayut defrauded her away from a lot more than $200,000, finding by herself lulled in to a false feeling of protection by their grand intimate gestures and flowery declarations of love. She stated she dropped prey to “confidence fraudulence.”
In June, Hayut ended up being arrested in Greece for making use of a false passport carrying out a joint procedure between Interpol and Israeli police.
Away from court Hayut told reporters from VG, a Norwegian socket that first broke the storyline, “we will get back into Israel, which is my house nation, and I also will face what exactly is waiting it, and we will sort everything out for me there and that’s. Whatever issues we will sort it call at court. that individuals have actually,”
He now faces extradition to Israel, where he had been indicted last year on theft, forgery and fraudulence fees unrelated to Fjellhoy but he fled the national nation before he had been set to face test.
In line with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, internet-facilitated love frauds, also called confidence fraudulence, may be the quantity one sort of customer fraudulence when you look at the U.S. across the world, victims of confidence fraudulence lose huge amounts of bucks each year, in accordance with the FBI.
Fjellhoy, who shared her tale with “Nightline” early in the day this present year, stated her relationship with Hayut started away innocently sufficient.
“this is the very first time where we felt like, ‘Oh my god i enjoy him. Also it seems me back as well,'” She said that he really likes. “He’s texting in which he’s calling in which he appears to really want to become personally familiar with me, and I also think i’m a bit for that.”
Fjellhoy said Hayut informed her that his task as a diamond dealer, employed by a business called LLD Diamonds, kept him traveling constantly, so they really dated distance that is long. She stated they delivered one another love notes over text, in video clip declarations and vocals tracks.
She stated he arrived to check out her in London as he could, but most of the time, she said she was flown by him to where he had been. She stated he’d constantly allude to a feature of danger in their task that kept him away, constantly on a personal jet. At one point, Fjellhoy said she was told by him he could not return to London as a result of threats he had been getting, “but he could easily get me personally to where he had been.”
She stated Hayut reported become under constant risk from unknown enemies that are nefarious. She stated he shared with her it had been a risk of involved in the diamond business.
Fjellhoy said Hayut surrounded himself with individuals whom aided perpetuate the misconception, also going as far as to deliver pictures of himself and their bodyguard when you look at the medical center when they had been allegedly “attacked.”
Based on Fjellhoy, it absolutely was maybe maybe not a long time before Hayut made a huge ask, begging her to give her credit line to him in order that any seats, accommodations and dinners could be scheduled under her title and their expected “enemies,” as she stated he called them, could be tossed down their path.
“One regarding the significant reasons why he required it absolutely was securityhe said,” Fjellhoy told “Nightline.… he required my title as a address,” “I’m sure it seems crazy. but why would he have this giant man he didn’t require the protection? with him if”
Fjellhoy said she relented because Hayut promised to pay her straight back, but funding their jet-set lifestyle ended up being costing her. While the cash he had been guaranteeing her was not to arrive.
“My angel My love i recently chatted to your bank and additionally they said that the transfer of Amex will likely be here on thousand percent,” read one text message Hayut sent her monday.
“the total amount which he has to be in a position to simply work for a week is plenty,” Fjellhoy stated. “It really is never ever just a couple of thousand, for him it is not lots of money. for all of us normal people who will be a lot of cash, but”
She stated he informed her he required huge amounts of cash he needed to book flights and hotels for because he had “an entire team. Fjellhoy said she assumed, because of his fancy clothing and life style, he’d cash and would spend her straight straight back.
“You don’t even think it was a challenge whenever you had been trying out the loans as you were therefore certain that this person while the individuals who you had met was an element of the LLD Diamonds and therefore the income existed,” she stated. “as he stated, ‘Everything’s likely to be fine after this ‘ and then it didn’t week. Therefore just ‘one more week’ and then ‘one more week.’ Therefore in the long run you very nearly you did not also recognize just just just how money that is much really owed.”
And fundamentally, Fjelljoy stated, she was at love with him.
“that is the most difficult section of it … whenever I recognized which he was not who he said he had been,” she stated. “That the individual that we thought that we knew and adored, he’d simply done something within the many wicked means.”
