Tinder Swindler Simon Leviev could face prison in Spain after an arrest warrant was issued for the Netflix conman.
Leviev, born Shimon Hayut, has already served time in his native Israel after being arrested for using a false passport in Greece.
Today it emerged the 31-year-old is being probed over the use of a fake driving licence after getting his £80,000 Maserati stuck on a Spanish beach during a day out with a mystery Russian blonde.
He told cops he was a holidaymaker called Michael Bilton and according to police, produced the false licence in one of the aliases he is known to have used.
A police officer specialised in spotting falsified documents identified the bogus diamond trader, who met women on Tinder before allegedly conning them out of millions, as the wealthy Costa tourist after watching the hit Netflix show.
Cops have now asked a court in the southern Spanish port city of Algeciras to reopen a criminal investigation against the man they now know to be Leviev after it was launched against Bilton.
It was not immediately clear today if the outstanding arrest warrant is a worldwide warrant and could lead to Leviev’s detention in his homeland and eventual extradition.
In February he was spotted leaving a restaurant in Tel Aviv after he was discovered living in a luxury 14-storey tower block in the Israeli coastal city.
Recent reports said he was looking to convert his newfound infamy into a Hollywood career.
Leviev, who is believed to be dating Israeli model Kate Konlin, has denied swindling the women he met on Tinder out of any money and insists he is a legitimate businessman who made his fortune by investing in Bitcoin.
His run-in with local police in the windsurfers’ paradise of Tarifa, just over an hour’s drive from the Costa del Sol beaches popular with British holidaymakers, occurred on January 30, 2019.
Officers responded to a call about a Maserati Levante stuck in the sand at a beach called Los Lances Sur.
They found a Russian blonde carrying a £7,500 Hermes handbag and an Israeli man wearing a £370 Gucci shirt when they arrived.
Police sources said yesterday the Israeli produced a driving licence in the name of Michael Bilton after being asked for ID before a tow truck arrived to take the rented vehicle away.
Despite cops suspecting the document was a forgery, no arrests were made and the couple were allowed to return to Malaga a two-hour drive away by taxi after giving police an address in the Costa del Sol capital pending an ongoing investigation.
A court probe into the man posing as Bilton, for alleged forgery and a traffic offence committed when he drove his sports car onto the sand, was put on hold after court summons went unanswered.
It is now set to be reopened after police discovered his real identity.
Police in Tarifa have confirmed local reports saying an officer specialising in forgeries made the link with Leviev after being advised to watch the Netflix show about him during a recent course in Ibiza and contacting a Norwegian journalist who helped expose him.
The Tinder Swindler’s use of a fake passport in Greece saw him extradited to Israel in 2019 where he faced charges for fraud, theft and forgery.
He was sentenced to 15 months in prison but only served five months in the end after being released for good behaviour.
His criminal career began as a teenager when he used stolen cheques to buy a Porsche and pay for a pilot training scheme.
He was charged in 2012 but fled his homeland on a stolen passport before sentencing. Three years later he was jailed for two years in Finland after defrauding women there.
Leviev has not been charged over the two-year dating scam exposed on Netflix, which featured three alleged women victims who said they were speaking out to protect others.
They believed he was the son of Russian-Israeli gem tycoon Lev Leviev, dubbed the King of Diamonds, but the two men are not related.
One victim, Cecilie Fjellhoy, said she ended up in a psychiatric ward after being conned out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Spanish police have not said whether the Russian woman Leviev allegedly tried to impress in Tarifa the day his Maserati got stuck was Polina Tsarenkova, who he is believed to have been dating around that time.
An Algeciras court official confirmed: “An arrest warrant is out for the person placed under investigation. That’s all the information I can provide at this stage.”
Source: Daily Mail
