A Tinder con artist catfished women and persuaded them to give him hundreds of thousands of dollars by pretending to be a billionaire's son, according to a new documentary

• Netflix's documentary "The Tinder Swindler" is about man who scammed women into debt.
• Shimon Hayut lied about his identity saying he was real-life billionaire diamond mogul Lev Leviev's son.

When 29-year-old Cecilie Fjellhøy met Simon Leviev on Tinder in 2018, she thought she'd scored the man of her dreams. He was handsome, generous, thoughtful, and rich.

At the time, Leviev told Fjellhøy he worked for his billionaire father in the diamond industry. Their online relationship quickly evolved into dates on private jets and at five-star hotels, massive flower bouquets, and romantic banter over phone calls and texts.

So when Fjellhøy learned Leviev had put her in debt for $250,000, an amount he once promised to return to her, she was stunned. She's still paying that money back today.

In Netflix's documentary "The Tinder Swindler," Fjellhøy and two other women who said they were victims of Leviev's scams, explain how they fell for the Israeli hustler, whose real name is Shimon Hayut. The documentary premieres on February 2.

In 2019, Finnish investigative journalists, with help from women who said they were conned by Hayut, found out his true identity. He was arrested in Finland in 2015 for scamming three other women, but after two years in prison, he was back to scheming. Since 2018, he's scammed an estimated $10 million from women he's dated and families he's worked for, and has been reported to police in seven different countries, according to "The Tinder Swindler."

In 2019, Hayut was sentenced to 15 months in an Israeli prison for fraud and identity theft and ordered to pay $43,289. But after five months, he was released and has since been spotted pretending to be a medic and cutting COVID-19 vaccine lines, according to the Times of Israel.

The Tinder Swindler's exes say they gave him money because they feared he was in danger

Pernilla Sjoholm was another one of Hayut's fraud victims.

Like Fjellhøy, Sjoholm met Hayut on Tinder and was intrigued by his apparent wealth and charisma. They decided to be friends instead of lovers, but she still lent Hayut enough money to put herself into debt, she said in the documentary.

Hayut would say he needed to borrow Fjellhøy's credit card, or ask her to lend him money, saying he needed to appear untraceable due to his family's diamond business. Hayut said he was the son of real-life Russian-Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev, but an investigation later uncovered he has no ties to the Leviev family.

But when Hayut would tell Fjellhøy, Sjoholm, and other women he feared for his safety and needed the money to run from his enemies, they felt they had no choice but to help the man they loved, his former lovers said in the documentary.

They said Hayut would ask for money after weeks or months of love-bombing, or showering his Tinder matches with gifts, trips, and promises of a future together. He called Fjellhøy his "future wife" in one voice message, she told the journalists at outlet Verdens Gang who broke the story in 2019.

"It felt good to be able to give it to him and say, 'Here's my credit card. I managed it,'" Fjellhøy told Verdens Gang.

While Fjellhøy waited for the $500,000 Hayut promised to reimburse her to hit her account, she got a call from the bank saying he forged the document, and she would never get the money.

She and other victims said they later learned Hayut would use one woman's money to buy another a plane ticket, or fund his own trips, giving the illusion of wealth.

Hayut was arrested and charged with fraud and identity theft

Fjellhøy and Sjoholm met once Finnish journalists began investigating their individual stories, and worked with a third victim, Ayleen Charlotte, to confirm Hayut's identity and have him arrested.

In June 2019, Interpol and Israeli police arrested Hayut and charged him with fraud and identity theft. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison, but only served five months before being released.

According to the Times of Israel, Hayut was released as part of a program to reduce inmate numbers and pandemic infections.

According to the documentary, Hayut now lives in Israel.