Moroccan-American rapper French Montana has posted a throwback selfie with Simon Leviev, AKA The Tinder Swindler, to his Instagram stories.
He shared that he once met the conman on an airplane, where Montana posed in a picture next to him wearing headphones and holding up a peace sign.
French Montana takes photo with The Twinder Swindler
Montanna posted the story days after Netflix’s release of its new true-crime documentary, The Tinder Swindler.
The documentary is centered around the “swindler” Simon Leviev, an Israeli who stole large sums of money from women he mislead on the popular dating app, Tinder.
Apparently, he and the “Unforgettable” rapper had previously traveled to the same destination at the same time.
French Montana posted the selfie along with the text, “I can’t believe I met the swindler.” The text also ended with a “crying laughing” emoji, which seemed to be used in a “what are the odds I actually have a photo with this guy” sort-of way.
French also posted a follow-up to his Instagram story yesterday of the same photo with a satirical caption that threw a dig at the swindler’s money stealing scheme.
The text read, “Hey we just left the hospital. French Montana is fine again, we are fine again, but our enemies are after us. Please send 50k fast. Please.”
The text is again accompanied by a bunch of the same laughing emojis underneath.
The story behind The Tindler Swindler
The crime documentary, released on February 2nd, tells the true story of Simon Leviev – a conman who scammed innocent women he met on Tinder for thousands of dollars. Leviev, born with the name Shimon Hayut, posed as a billionaire playboy on the app and wooed his matches by offering them expensive trips and presents.
After impressing each victim, he then asked for large amounts of money with the promise to one day pack them back. Impressed and romanticized by the “playboy,” the women agreed and Leviev created a cycle that ended up with him stealing roughly $10 million dollars from them throughout the years.
The documentary included interviews with three of the women involved in Simon’s scheme. Pernilla Sjoholm, Cecilie Fjellhøy, and Ayleen Charlotte told their stories for the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang back in 2019 regarding their involvement.
According to The Washington Post, the swindler was sentenced to 15 months at an Israeli prison for fraudulent activity. He was released from prison merely five months later, as reported by The Times of Israel. The sentence wasn’t even for anything regarding his terrible Tinder enterprise.
Simon Leviev made his first statement since the documentary’s release
According to Insider, an Instagram account under the handle @simon_leviev_official posted about The Tinder Swindler before deleting the account.
Posted as an Instagram story, the account wrote, “If I was a fraud why would I act on Netflix. I mean they should have arrested me when we were still shooting. It’s high time the ladies start saying the truth.”
He continued, “If you can’t give the world they want, they’ll turn yours to hell. I will be addressing the whole world on Friday. Stay tuned and tag others.”
As of now, Simon has been permanently banned from the dating app, which Tinder told to Variety in an official statement on February 4th.
Watch the official trailer for The Tinder Swindler on Netflix below: