Pernilla Sjöholm is a scam fighter rather than a victim these days, but this week she is thinking about Simon Leviev again.
The man better known as the ‘Tinder Swindler’ was arrested in Georgia on Sunday, and you could say it was a celebratory moment for her.
She posted a video with a German flag, thanking Berlin police ‘for doing the work that apparently no other country could do!’
While the exact reason for his arrest has not been made public, he was detained on an Interpol Red Notice as he crossed the border, days after he boasted about publishing a book.
Speaking to Metro before this news broke, Pernilla, 38, told how she was near suicidal after learning of his betrayal, after first meeting him in 2018.
In the 2022 Netflix documentary which became the platform’s most watched until that point, she claims she lost tens of thousands of pounds to Leviev after he posed as her platonic ‘best friend’, gaining her trust by taking her on lavish holidays on a private jet before requests for money began.
In reality, these trips were partly funded in part by another victim, Cecilie Fjellhoy (who has now become one of her genuine best friends).
Despite his moniker becoming a household name, no criminal charges have yet been brought regarding what happened to them.
Until now, it had appeared that Leviev was facing little accountability for his alleged actions, aside from a five-month jail stint in Israel in 2019 for an unrelated fraud.
His Instagram account showed him on yachts and private jets, writing captions such as ‘Walk up to that girl who gives you butterflies. Take risks’ and appearing on podcasts discussing his infamy.
Pernilla, who has just published a book co-written with Cecilie, told Metro that it took her at least two years to recover from the impact of being scammed.
‘I lost everything and felt like there was no future,’ she said. ‘I got blamed quite a lot for not knowing that he wasn’t who he said he was.’
She lost friends as the deceipt unravelled, and the betrayal and shame weighed on her, as they do to many fraud victims, whose care and generosity has been preyed on.
‘Back in 2019, being defrauded meant I have lower intelligence. I am a stupid person and it’s just embarrassing to be seen with me,’ she said. ‘So that was very hurtful.’
But the experience has given her life purpose, as she has launched a tech business called IDfier designed to help ‘make sure you’re speaking to a real person’.
When she met Leviev online, it was just up to her to try to work out if there were red flags.
She had seen his passport, met his friends and apparent family, and seen him check into hotels under his assumed name (he changed his name from Shimon Hayut, allegedly so he could claim he was the son of diamond dealer Lev Leviev and heir to his fortune).
‘He had a verified Instagram account. I really thought that I had done my due diligence,’ she said.
‘What else could I have done? I can’t send a private detective to every new person I meet.’
She now thinks that a verified badge on social media is not enough evidence that someone is who they say they are, showing me examples of profiles which are clearly fakes.
Typing in ‘Kevin Costner’ on Instagram, an account with a photo of his face and a blue tick appeared within seconds.
The verification badge, used by the Meta-owned company, was meant to show the user is authentic and notable; that you can trust what they post.
But private account @k_evin_c_ost_ner1, based in Italy, had nothing to do with the American actor in reality, despite the profile photo showing his rugged jaw line and sandy blonde hair. Did his 231 followers realise this?
Showing me a screenshot of another verified but clearly fake profile registered to Nigeria – which had by then been removed after it was flagged –she said: ‘This is not Kevin Costner. How come he passes through an identification process?’
The loophole seems to have been that users were able to change their details after getting verification for something obviously fake.
And Pernilla says the problem is not restricted to Instagram alone, but is an epidemic across the internet.
While celebrity impersonation scams are common, it’s also easy for people to fall victim to a persona entirely made up by AI.
Facebook took action on over a billion fake accounts in the third quarter of 2024 alone, and it is estimted that as many as 10% or more of dating profiles are fake.
‘We need to normalise identity verification,’ Pernilla said, so checking the identity of strangers when we first meet becomes commonplace.
She doesn’t just see this as important for dating, but in any interaction where we are meeting strangers, such as for a job interview, or for a potential flatmate.
Comparing it to tech for a quick money transfer, like ‘Monzo me’ or its Swedish equivalent ‘Swiss’, she said: ‘In the beginning we didn’t realise we needed it, and now we can’t really be without it,’ she said.
How does IDfier work?
People scan their identify document, such as driving licence or passport, as well as NFC chip, like the ones in passports.
They then do a head movement check, filming themselves looking in different directions.
The platform’s AI confirms you’re ‘a real human, not a static image or manipulated video’, claiming this is done with 99.9% accuracy.
Once you have verified yourself, you can request others do the same, and swap the information proving you are the person you claim to be.
Now married, Pernilla ‘loves’ being a mum to toddler twins, and says she is the happiest she’s ever been.
But the experience has clearly had a huge impact, and she says she still regularly gets messages from others who have fallen victim to scams.
‘It absolutely breaks my heart and to see that when these fraudsters, even if they get caught, only get caught for money loss,’ she said.
‘They don’t get caught for the mental, emotional abuse that they do, especially when it comes romance scams or emotional scams in general. It wasn’t just the money that I lost.’
Denying any wrongdoing, Leviev told Metro before his arrest: ‘Perenila [sic] never was my girlfriend, I never dated her and I never took money from her or any other woman. She is a liar which made millions out of it and trying to victimise herself to gain free publicity as you do.’
Fake celebrity content brought to the attention of Meta has been removed.
Impersoning others on Facebook and Instagram violates the policies of the social media platforms, and the company is investing in technology to improve detection of scams.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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