In 2022, Netflix released a documentary about, quite possibly, the wildest story I've ever heard. And it all happened on the dating app, Tinder.
The Tinder Swindler tells the story of a man who use the dating app, Tinder, introduces himself to unsuspecting women on Tinder as the son of a man who is well off financially due to being in the diamond business. His goal was to meet woman and manipulate them into sending him money. The main excuse that he used for needing this money was that he needed to "get away from his enemies". Unfortunately, his swindling (get it? It's the name of the...nevermind y'all got it already) was successful and he was able to obtain an estimated $10 million from these women. All of this swindling took place between 2017 and 2019.
Felicity Morris does a great job of visualizing the wild and crazy things that this guy was telling the women he was meeting. She's also the person behind the camera for 2 other great docs, Don't Fuck with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer and American Nightmare. This doc also has a sort of dramatization to it to reenact the events. This is a great documentary to watch and the story is so unbelievable that it keeps you on the edge of your seat for the entire runtime.
The alleged Tinder Swindler is Simon Leviev, is an Israeil citizen who has been a criminal for quite some time. Here are some things that you won't find out about him in this doc. Before the events of this doc, in 2011, he was arrested for cashing stolen checks from 2 different people. He took the checkbook of a family when he was babysitting for them and he took the checkbook of a handyman who was doing work on his home. He ended up successfully fleeing the country, but was caught a year later and placed in an Israeli prison. 3 years later in 2015, he was arrested in Finland and did 3 years in prison for having stolen passports, AMEX credit cards, forged driver's licenses and flight permits.
After the events of the Tinder catfishing, during COVID, he charged people a fee on his website for "business advice" and then pretended to be a medical worker so he could get the COVID vaccine early. So, for this guy, it doesn't matter if he's getting money out of it, he will just lie about everything in order to get what he wants and he seems to always be successful. This guy might just be the best criminal I've ever seen. However, while he's successful at this scams, he is also successfully caught every time, so maybe that makes him a really bad criminal. Anyway, this man will blow your mind and this story will blow your mind, so this documentary is 1000% worth the watch!
