“The Tinder Swindler,” an eye-opening documentary about a notorious con man who used the dating app to defraud multiple women, could be getting the movie treatment.
Variety understands that Netflix is in talks with producers about dramatizing the wild documentary that’s likely to make any Tinder user’s blood run cold. Sources indicate that the conversation is in early stages, and that the tone of a potential film is still being worked out.
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“The Tinder Swindler” debuted on the streaming service only on Wednesday, and it’s already cracking the platform’s Top 10 lists in the U.S. and U.K.
Produced by “Three Identical Strangers” and “Don’t F*** With Cats” makers Raw TV, alongside AGC Studios and Gaspin Media, the 114-minute doc tells the story of Israeli fraudster Shimon Hayut, who conned Scandinavian women into parting with hundreds of thousands of dollars by pretending on dating app Tinder to be Simon Leviev, the son of Israeli diamond tycoon Lev Leviev.
The documentary, directed by Felicity Morris (“Don’t F*** With Cats”), interviews the women who were conned by Hayut as they uncover his true identity with the help of journalists from Norwegian newspaper VG, and bring him to justice.
Hayut, who was imprisoned in Israel in December 2019 on a 15-month jail sentence (of which he served just over five months), conned his victims by romancing them with expensive dates and forming long-distance relationships with them. He then asked them to take out lines of credit for him under their names in order to pay for what he claimed to be were extensive security needs.
Hayut, a free man, currently resides in Israel. His public Instagram page had more than 200,000 followers by press time, and an Instagram story published on Friday indicates that he’s preparing to tell his version of the story.
The producer on “Tinder Swindler” is Bernadette Higgins, while executive producers are Bart Layton and Sam Starbuck for All3Media-owned Raw TV; Jeff Gaspin and Eric Levy for Gaspin Media; and Stuart Ford and Lourdes Diaz for AGC Studios.
Netflix declined to comment.
Marc Malkin contributed to this story.
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