Cecilie Fjellhoy thought she had met her prince charming in the beginning.
Exactly exactly How A israeli conman’s alleged victim says he swindled her out of $200K
Cecilie Fjellhoy thought she had met her prince charming whenever she matched on Tinder with Simon Leviev.
Fjellhoy, a 29-year-old Norwegian masters pupil surviving in London, stated she had been swept off her feet to their very very first date, which included a plane that is private to Bulgaria. Fjellhoy said Leviev shared with her he ended up being a millionaire that is israeli called himself the “Prince of Diamonds.”
“I happened to be texting my buddies during the time that is same in a bunch talk similar to, ‘I do not know what’s happening,'” she stated.
But exactly what started as a storybook relationship converted into a real-life nightmare, Fjellhoy said – the one that delivered her into debt and fearing on her behalf security. It’s a tale that is cautionary the risks of online dating.
“we hate him, he is therefore terrible,” she stated. “we have always been simply fed up with crying relating to this you understand? It is simply therefore painful. I recently hate myself that i did so this.”
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Leviev came to be Shimon Hayut, a 28-year-old convicted Israeli con-man who served 36 months in Finnish jail for defrauding a few feamales in purchase to invest in their luxurious life style of personal jets and quick vehicles, which Fjellhoy said he adored to demonstrate down.
Fjellhoy said Hayut defrauded her away from a lot more than $200,000, finding by by herself lulled right into a false feeling of protection by their grand intimate gestures and flowery declarations of love. She stated she dropped victim to “confidence fraudulence.”
In June, Hayut ended up being arrested in Greece for making use of a false passport carrying out a joint procedure between Interpol and Israeli police.
Away from court Hayut told reporters from VG, a Norwegian socket that first broke the tale, “we is certainly going back once again to Israel, which is my house nation, and I also will face what exactly is waiting it, and we will sort everything out for me there and that’s. Whatever dilemmas we will sort it down in court. that individuals have actually,”
He now faces extradition to Israel, where he had been indicted last year on theft, forgery and fraudulence charges unrelated to Fjellhoy but he fled the nation before he had been set to face test.
In accordance with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, internet-facilitated relationship frauds, also referred to as self- self- confidence fraud, may be the no. 1 style of customer fraud into the U.S. all over the world, victims of self- self- confidence fraudulence lose huge amounts of bucks every year, in line with the FBI.
Fjellhoy, whom shared her tale with “Nightline” early in the day in 2010, stated her relationship with Hayut started away innocently sufficient.
“this is the time that is first we felt like, ‘Oh my god i enjoy him. Also it appears he actually likes me personally back too,'” She stated. “He’s texting in which he’s calling in which he generally seems to actually want to become personally familiar with me, and I also think i’m a little for that.”
Fjellhoy said Hayut informed her that their task as a diamond dealer, employed by a business called LLD Diamonds, kept him traveling constantly, so that they dated cross country. She stated they delivered one another love notes over text, in video clip declarations and sound tracks.
She said he came to consult with her in London as he could, but most of the time, she stated she was flown by him to where he had been. She stated he’d constantly allude to a feature of risk in the task that kept him away, constantly for a personal jet. At one point, Fjellhoy said she was told by him he could not get back to London due to threats he had been getting, “but he might get us to where he had been.”
She said Hayut reported become under constant danger from unknown enemies that are nefarious. She stated he informed her it had been a risk of employed in the diamond company.
Fjellhoy said Hayut surrounded himself with individuals whom aided perpetuate the misconception, also going as far as to deliver pictures of himself along with his bodyguard when you look at the medical center once they had been allegedly “attacked.”
Based on Fjellhoy, it absolutely was maybe not well before Hayut made a large ask, begging her to increase her credit line to him in order for any seats, accommodations and dinners will be scheduled under her name along with his expected “enemies,” as she stated he called them, could be tossed down their path.
“One associated with major causes why he required it had been securityhe said,” Fjellhoy told “Nightline.… he required my title as a address,” “I’m sure it appears crazy. but why would he have this giant man with him if he don’t require the protection?”
Fjellhoy said she relented because Hayut promised to pay her straight back, but funding their jet-set lifestyle ended 
up being costing her. Plus the cash she ended up being being guaranteed by him was not to arrive.
“My angel My love i recently chatted into the bank and so they told me that the transfer of Amex will undoubtedly be here on Monday thousand per cent,” read one text Hayut sent her.
“the quantity which he has to be in a position to simply work for a week is a great deal,” Fjellhoy said. “It really is never ever just a couple thousand, for us normal people who will be a lot of cash, however for him it isn’t big money.”
She stated he informed her he required considerable amounts of cash because he’d “a complete group” he had a need to book routes and resorts for. Fjellhoy said she assumed, as a result of their clothes that are flashy life style, he previously money and would spend her straight straight back.
“You did not also think because you were so sure that this guy and the people that you had met was part of the LLD Diamonds and that the money existed,” she said that it was a problem when you were taking up the loans. “as he said, ‘Everything’s likely to be fine after this week,’ after which it did not. So just ‘one more week’ and then ‘one more week.’ Therefore in the end you very nearly you don’t even understand exactly exactly just how money that is much really owed.”
And finally, Fjelljoy stated, she was at love with him.
“this is the hardest section of it … whenever I knew which he was not who he said he had been,” she stated. “That the individual that we thought that we knew and enjoyed, he previously simply done something within the most wicked way.”
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