Tinder Swindler Simon Leviev launches scam-proof dating app | Latest Tech News
Deception, scams and circumstances of false identification.
These are common dangers in online dating that Simon Leviev said he can forestall with his soon-to-be launched dating app, Safe Love.
He is aware of how fraudsters commit those deceptions. He was one of them.
Leviev, who was born Shimon Yehuda Hayut, gained prominence as the “Tinder Swindler” because of his romance fraud schemes. The 36-year-old made a lavish income extorting money from girls he met online.
In 2015 and 2019, he was convicted of fraud, theft and forgery fees in Israel and Finland, he confirmed to Fox News Digital in a video convention interview.
Simon Leviev, left, is expelled from town of Athens, Greece, in 2019. He was then jailed in Israel until May 2020. AFP via Getty Images
He served time in Finland from September 2015 until March 2017, he said. He was arrested in Israel in 2011 and 2017 for the same case. And in June 2019, he was extradited from Greece to Israel, where he was jailed until May 2020, he said.
In Finland, Leviev was sentenced in 2015 to two years behind bars after authorities said he defrauded three girls, according to The Times of Israel.
He was convicted in 2019 of 4 fees of fraud and sentenced to 15 months in prison but was launched after 5 months, the BBC reported.
Leviev now plans to use his experience to cut back the dangers concerned in discovering potential associate matches online, he said.
Leviev also served time in Finland from 2015 to 2017 after extorting money from online dating matches. Instagram/@simonleviev7
He compares himself to famed fraudster Frank Abagnale Jr., convicted con man immortalized in the 2002 Steven Spielberg film “Catch Me If You Can.” Abagnale dedicated test fraud, theft and forgery and later grew to become a fraud-prevention specialist.
“The idea came from me being the Tinder Swindler,” Leviev said in his heavy Israeli accent. “They say I made the dating environment unsafe. So I thought, ‘All right. Let’s make it safe.’”
He principally splits time between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. His experience in the realm of fraud makes him the right candidate to help others keep away from being victims, he said.
“I did use false passports. I did use false identity,” he said. “I’ve been convicted for that. I’ve paid my debts to society. Obviously, things which I’m not proud of.”
But because of his unsavory past, he’s assured that he has the abilities and information of how to forestall the sorts of fraud he dedicated.
“I know how fake passports look,” he said. And perhaps even “better than a passport controller in the airport, because I did cross tons of or if not hundreds of … pretend passports.
“No one ever questioned me once. I know I know how to challenge the system.”
Match gone mistaken
Leviev’s new dating platform could have more inflexible identification necessities than current dating apps, he said.
To guarantee a person’s online identification is real, the person might be required to add a authorities identification card and take a selfie to match it. Any images uploaded to a profile won’t be allowed if they differ from that selfie by more than 15%, he said.
He desires to guarantee that potential matches considered online are the same — in look and identification –—as who exhibits up on a date.
He bought the concept from his own match gone mistaken involving somebody who was transgender, he said.
A security characteristic deliberate for the Safe Love app is an SOS button that customers can press if they’re feeling unsafe on a date.
The telephone would immediately start recording audio and video. It would share the person’s location. And that could be shared with law enforcement authorities, Leviev said.
Safe Love is in the late levels of the regulation part it must cross before its release.
“It could be a few days, could be a few weeks, but hopefully as soon as possible,” he said.
Giving love a unhealthy title or love crimes
The Online Dating and Discovery Association (ODDA), a group that promotes secure online dating, has spoken out opposing Leviev’s plan for the app.
In a letter despatched to Google and Apple, the group urged the tech giants to ban the platform from their app shops.
Leviev in a photograph posted on July 24, 2026. He has made a new dating platform called Safe Love to forestall scamming. Instagram/@simonleviev7
“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,” ODDA wrote in the letter.
“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.”
But the pushback doesn’t threaten to stop his project, Leviev said.
“They won’t be able to do that, and they won’t succeed,” he said.
They’re afraid of the prevalence of his product, he said.
“I mean, they’re threatened by me.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Apple and Google for remark.
Leviev said his background drives him to make sure his app is “working perfectly” before its release. He can’t afford to make any errors, he said.
“If one thing will go mistaken, I can’t be saying, ‘Ah, we have a fault in our system.’ Automatically, I might be [considered] guilty as charged.
“I have notoriety. It means that I cannot do mistakes.”
He is aware of there are some who say his past crimes make him a risk. He desires them to take into account this:
“Yes, on paper I’m a convicted criminal,” he said. “But I’m not the same kid that I was [at] 19 years old.”
Though he’s never married, he’s now the daddy of an 11-year-old daughter with one girl and a 3-year-old son with another girl.
“And we do change. People do change.”
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