Man (30s) arrested by gardaí investigating ‘romance fraud’ complaints

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10/01/2025 | 21:08 PM

Gardaí have arrested a man in the Dublin region as part of an investigation into romance fraud complaints in Ireland.

Victims were allegedly targeted through a variety of popular dating apps

Gardaí searched a house in the Dublin area on Friday and sezied a number of electronic items.

A man in his 30s was arrested and detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984 at a Garda station in the Dublin Metropolitan Region.

The man has since been released from detention.

Investigations are ongoing, Gardaí said. An Israeli man, born Shimon Hayut, travelled around Europe, presenting himself as the son of Russian-Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev. He used the dating app Tinder to contact women and trick them into lending him money that he would never repay. He would charm women with lavish gifts and take them to dinners on private jets using money he obtained from other women he had previously conned. He would later pretend he was being targeted by his “enemies”, often sending the same messages and images to each woman, indicating that he had just been attacked with a knife, but that his bodyguard had saved him and was hurt. He then asked his victims to help him financially due to the breach of ‘security’, supposedly hindering his use of his credit cards and bank accounts; the women would often take out bank loans and new credit cards in order to help. He would then use the money gained through the deception to lure new victims, while essentially operating a Ponzi scheme.^[3][4] Later, he would pretend to repay his victims by sending forged documents showing fake bank transfers^[4] and then break off contact with the victims.^[5] Sometimes he would go as far as threaten them and use manipulation to get more money from his victims. It is estimated that he swindled $10 million from people across the world.