Simon Leviev, the convicted fraudster known worldwide as the “Tinder Swindler,” is launching his own dating app called Safe Love and says his criminal past makes him the right person to stop the kind of scams he once ran.
Leviev, 36, born Shimon Yehuda Hayut, was convicted of fraud, theft and forgery in both Israel and Finland. He confirmed the details of his record in a video interview with Fox News Digital. In Finland he was sentenced in 2015 to two years in prison after authorities said he defrauded three women, and served time there from September 2015 until March 2017. He was arrested in Israel in 2011 and 2017 over the same case, and in June 2019 was extradited from Greece to Israel, where he was held until May 2020. He was also convicted in 2019 on four counts of fraud and sentenced to 15 months, but was released after five.
“The idea came from me being the Tinder Swindler,” Leviev said. “They say I made the dating environment unsafe. So I thought, ‘All right. Let’s make it safe.'”
He draws a comparison to Frank Abagnale Jr., the convicted con man behind “Catch Me If You Can,” who turned his fraud expertise into a career advising companies on how to stop it.
“I did use false passports. I did use false identity. I’ve been convicted for that. I’ve paid my debts to society. Obviously, things which I’m not proud of.”
Leviev argues his record is exactly what qualifies him to build a fraud-resistant platform. “I know how fake passports look,” he said, claiming he could spot one “better than a passport controller in the airport” because he passed so many fakes himself. “No one ever questioned me once. I know how to challenge the system.”
How the app is supposed to work
Safe Love will require users to upload a government ID and take a matching selfie before joining. Any profile photo that differs from that selfie by more than 15% won’t be allowed, according to Leviev. The goal, he said, is to make sure the person on the app is the same person who shows up to the date — an idea he says came out of his own experience matching with someone who was transgender.
The app will also include an SOS button. Pressing it starts recording audio and video, shares the user’s location, and alerts law enforcement, Leviev said.
Safe Love is in the final stages of a regulatory review before release. “It could be a few days, could be a few weeks, but hopefully as soon as possible,” Leviev said.
Industry pushback
The Online Dating and Discovery Association, a group that advocates for safety standards in the industry, has formally asked Apple and Google to keep the app off their stores. In a letter to both companies, the group wrote:
“We do not believe either app store wishes to be the platform that hosted a fraudster’s return to the very environment in which his crimes were committed. Allowing a convicted romance fraud offender to operate a dating platform, an environment built entirely on trust and on the very emotional and financial vulnerabilities he has already been proven to exploit, completely undermines the efforts our sector has made and represents a very real risk to users.”
Leviev dismisses the opposition. “They won’t be able to do that, and they won’t succeed,” he said, adding that he believes critics are reacting to the strength of his product.
Fox News Digital reached out to Apple and Google for comment.
Leviev said his notoriety leaves him no margin for error. “If something will go wrong, I cannot be saying, ‘Ah, we have a fault in our system.’ Automatically, I will be guilty as charged. I have notoriety. It means that I cannot do mistakes.”
He maintains he has changed since his crimes. “Yes, on paper I’m a convicted criminal,” he said. “But I’m not the same kid that I was 19 years old.” Leviev, who splits his time between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, has never married but has an 11-year-old daughter with one woman and a 3-year-old son with another.
