By: Natasha Archary
If there’s one thing the Tinder Swindler taught us, it’s that people are still being scammed by their lover/s and this trend isn’t going to stop as long as people are in relationships.
Simon Leviev conned and swindled multiple women for millions of dollars and several men in South Africa have taken a leaf out of his book and lured women who were seeking relationships, before cleaning out their savings and pensions.
The gripping Netflix documentary about Leviev showed how he lured his unsuspecting victims on Tinder, a dating app and won them over with his fake, lavish lifestyle.
Before long the women had fallen head over heels in love with Leviev and he played on their weakness and loneliness, convincing them to send him large sums of money because his life was in danger.
The women fell for his ploy because he had given them the impression that he was the heir to the Leviev diamond empire, and showered them with princess treatment on dates before he deceived them into parting with their life’s savings.
Closer to home, between May and August 2022, a North West woman was scammed out of her R2 million pension after she met a man on the dating app Badoo.
The 54-year old woman reportedly handed her charming lover money amounting to an estimated R2 million.
At the time of the investigation, the Hawks in the North West said the man had used multiple aliases in his interactions with the woman.
In a more recent incident, a Polokwane woman was scammed out of R650 000 by her boyfriend and a “prophetess” who promised she could make millions but she would first need to pay the large sum of money in order to appease her ancestors.
As the woman did not have the amount, she went to the bank and applied for a loan.
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