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Daisy Maldonado
Feb 15, 2022
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The Tinder Swindler is basking in his newfound fame, even if it's for all the wrong reasons, and is making plans to ensure he gets more than his 15 seconds in the limelight.
The con man - whose real name is Simon Leviev - wants his Hollywood career to extend beyond his Netflix debut with sources close to Leviev having reportedly told TMZ he wants to write a book and host a dating podcast.
The sources also shared that he has pitched an idea for a controversial new TV show that involves women competing for his love.
To accomplish his goal of becoming a Hollywood star, Leviev has enlisted the help of a new manager, Gina Rodriguez. The media outlet further noted that "they've already discussed a bunch of plans to parlay his newfound Netflix fame into profit and an entertainment career."
Leviev's story of deceit and manipulation was shown in Netflix's new documentary, The Tinder Swindler.
The new doc tells the story of women who were conned after Leviev pretended to be the heir to a billion-dollar diamond business. He spent years traveling around the world fooling women into thinking he was rich and forming a relationship with them.
He then would ask them to lend him money by faking being in danger, which many women who were in a relationship with him did, thinking that people wanted to harm Leviev.
When authorities eventually caught on, he was wanted for a series of crimes, including forgery and theft.
He spent two years in a Finnish prison for defrauding several women and after his 2017 release, he went back to his homeland of Israel. After, he fled the country and went to Europe, which is where the events as shown by Netflix's documentary begin.
In 2019, he was caught for using a fake passport in Greece and was extradited to Israel where he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for theft, fraud, and forgery of documents.
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Notably, these were all charges from 2011 and were unrelated to the accusations made against him in the Netflix documentary.
He has since returned to Instagram.
"The past few days was not easy for me . Thank you all for your love and support . I will keep fighting as I always did," he wrote on the social media app.
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