The real Levievs allege they’re bearing the cost of Hayut’s posing as a family member.
The man who allegedly conned scores of women out of an estimated $10 million by pretending to be the son of Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev is facing a new legal challenge.
The family he claimed to be a part of is coming after his allegedly ill-gotten gains.
In a lawsuit reportedly filed in Tel Aviv and seen by NBC News, the real Levievs accuse Hayut of “receiving numerous benefits (including material ones), cunningly and using false words, [and] claiming to be a member of the Leviev Family.” Meanwhile, it is the family that “will pay and bear the costs of his benefits,” the lawsuit alleges.
They have a lot at stake – Forbes last estimated the Leviev fortune to be a bit under $1 billion in 2020, thanks in part to patriarch Lev Leviev’s close connections to the likes of former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, which helped him acquire gems, snap up mines and undercut De Beers’ stranglehold on the diamond market.
Simon Leviev, whose real name is Shimon Hayut, previously served 5 months of a 15-month sentence in Israel for unrelated fraud charges (he was reportedly released early, in 2020, for good behavior).
But as of early February, the exposure of his latest scams in Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler” hadn’t prevented him from flaunting his extravagant lifestyle on Instagram (he’s since deactivated his profile, after being banned from Tinder and other social networks).
Shimon Hayut relied on a shadowy network of his own to pull off his heist, and the Levievs’ lawsuit will attempt to shine light on its members.
“We will file a monetary suit against Simon and any other affiliate that will work with him, including some websites that have Joint ventures with Simon and/or have offered to buy cameos from him,” said family attorney Guy Ophir in a statement Monday.
“Anyone that will try to capitalize from this scheme will be sued.”
The Levievs’ attorney told Good Morning America that “any money they recoup will go to Simon’s alleged victims.”
In a recent video, Hayut denied the charges against him, claiming that “I’m not a fraud and I’m not a fake. People don’t know me, so they cannot judge me.”
