Simon Leviev, a name that should be familiar to anyone who watched Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler documentary back in 2022, has reportedly been detained at the Batumi International Airport in Georgia.
Per several regional reports, including this one from Georgia Today, Simon Leviev, formerly known as Shimon Hayut, was detained upon arrival at the airport on Sunday. While additional details on the exact nature of the detainment weren’t immediately made clear, at least not publicly, a separate report from Civil.ge cited a rep for Georgia’s Interior Ministry as saying that Leviev had been detained “on an Interpol Red Notice.”
Meanwhile, an attorney for Leviev, who was previously the subject of an Interpol arrest in Greece in 2019, told the Tel Aviv-based Walla News that he had spoken with his client following the detainment, though it wasn’t “clear to us what the reason is.”
Complex has reached out to Leviev’s legal team, as well as to Batumi International Airport reps, for additional comment on the latest detainment. This story may be updated.
In The Tinder Swindler, directed by Felicity Morris and released to streaming in February 2022, the focus is put on Leviev’s alleged history of scamming people out of millions of dollars on the Tinder dating app. Several years earlier, allegations against Leviev were detailed in the press in an article boasting the same title.
The documentary proved to be an undeniable blockbuster for Netflix, ultimately leading to multiple Emmys nominations, including a writing nod for Morris. Shortly after the doc’s Netflix debut, Tinder confirmed it had banned Leviev from the app, citing the results of “internal investigations” in their decision.
