The Times Magazine 15was one of the people who said yes to Leviev?
“I think at that point in time I was, not
vulnerable... But I’d just moved to London.
I had done my master’s, worked part-time in
a new city, didn’t know many people. I didn’t
have close friends and my family weren’t here.”
You had no social context? No one who
knew you well, on whom you could rely to
check you, question you, stop you?
“Right.” On top of which, it felt to Fjellhoy
as if, with Leviev, “now my life is starting in
London. I’ve met someone, and he was the
main thing to hold on to. Half a year in London
and you meet the man of your dreams!”
I’d have wondered if Fjellhoy’s romantic
streak made her ripe for Leviev’s con, except
that, before meeting her, I’d already had a
Zoom chat with Pernilla Sjoholm, who, though
quite as pretty, smart and bright as Fjellhoy,
had no romantic connection with Leviev, but
got conned just the same. We speak on the
morning of Sjoholm’s 35th birthday (“It’s not
a situation I would want to be in at the age of
35,” she says, “fighting to get my life back”).
“What he did with Cecilie, he did it so
differently. He adapts his personality. Like,
for example, I don’t like people who are flashy
and show off – I find it disgusting. So he never
did that with me. And then when everything
came out, I could just see all these videos [of
Leviev’s excessive lifestyle] and I’m like, ‘Who
is this person?’ ”
Cecilie Fjellhoy calls Leviev’s company
“immersive theatre”.
Does Sjoholm feel she got away lightly,
because she didn’t get romantically or sexually
involved with Leviev?
“No. I mean, who do you want to be betrayed
by? Your best friend or your boyfriend? With
a guy, you can always [think], ‘My boyfriend
might cheat.’ But with your best friends, you
think they are always going to be loyal. I have a
really hard time now, letting people in, finding
new friends. I’m suspicious when someone tries
to come into my life. I get scared they’re going
to hurt me.” Sjoholm, like Fjellhoy, contemplated
suicide in the wake of Leviev’s con.
Both Fjellhoy and Sjoholm tell me the
reason they decided to appear in the film, why
they parked concerns that they’d reignite the
public scorn the VG article inspired and risk
“I’d maybe be ‘Pernilla, who got defrauded’,
always associated with this story for a long
time”, is that they desperately want justice.
Apart from that brief jail term back in
2015, Simon Leviev got away with all his
crimes because the authorities simply weren’t
bothered enough to stop him. This is why he’d
been able to go on to defraud Fjellhoy, then
Sjoholm, whom one credit card company
could have alerted to the risk she faced after
Fjellhoy flagged her name to it – only, it chose
not to. (“We have a lot of questions for them,”
Fjellhoy tells me, coolly.)Why was Leviev allowed to persist?
Perhaps because his crimes were committed
in so many different countries, pursuing him
was complicated logistically. Perhaps because
the shame many victims felt compelled them
to silence. Perhaps because the nature of
his crimes is new and internet-enabled, and
so understanding them as crimes, even, is
difficult. Perhaps because of what Fjellhoy
calls “the woman angle, to be very honest
with you”. I can see there might be limited
compassion for the suffering of young,
attractive Scandinavian women. “But that
goes for a lot of crimes against women. Rape?
It’s your fault. Why did you go there? Why
are you dressing like this? It’s the same with
fraud. So here I am, the bad person.”
One could even imagine the same impulse
that drove me and everyone I tell about The
Tinder Swindler to belittle and dismiss the
suffering of Leviev’s victims may have
informed a greater international apathy, a
general lack of interest among the various
authorities in stopping Leviev.
In the end, Fjellhoy, Sjoholm and,
latterly, Ayleen Charlotte worked together,
independently of the authorities, to ensure
Leviev was caught in 2019, and ultimately
imprisoned, though only for five short months,
and on charges that did not relate to the
crimes he committed against the very women
who got him arrested.
So here these women are, still profoundly
damaged by the actions of one man; still stuck
in the limbo of aftermath; still either too broke
to buy their own home (in the case of Sjoholm),
or bankrupt and fearing for their financial
future (Fjellhoy); too damaged to attempt
another serious relationship (Fjellhoy), or anyrelationship at all (Sjoholm); still employing
language that suggests they think they’re
responsible for what happened (“I totally
f***ed up,” Fjellhoy tells me at one point).
Leviev, meanwhile, appears to be cheerfully
moving on. He’s not only out of prison, he’s up
to his old tricks, posturing all over Instagram,
posting more images of excessive wealth: the
cars, the clothes, the clubs, a new girlfriend.
“I’ve heard that she’s properly brainwashed,”
Fjellhoy tells me. Of course, these women
want justice, they want the police, the courts
and Fjellhoy’s creditors to recognise what
happened to them was a crime, not merely
the consequence of them being naive or bad
with money, or pathetically romantic, or even
“gold-diggers, prostitutes”, two accusations the
internet hurled at them in the wake of the VG
article. (“The gold-digger stamp I think is so
funny,” says Fjellhoy. “I’m bankrupt! I’m the
worst gold-digger in the world.”)
I ask if they hate Leviev.
“To be honest, yeah, I do,” says Sjoholm,
“and I don’t hate people. He is so sick. He
doesn’t think he’s done something wrong. He
thinks he’s entitled to do this and we are the
bad people.” When Sjoholm realised Leviev
was conning her, she sent him texts accusing
him and he responded with outrage, self-pity,
threats. When the police arrested Leviev,
he issued a lawsuit for defamation against
Sjoholm and Fjellhoy from jail. “I think he’s
the only person in the world I genuinely hate.”
Fjellhoy is angrier, she says, with the banks
and establishments who let him keep on getting
away with his actions (“Stop him and he won’t
be able to do it”); also, with the people who
surrounded him, Peter the bodyguard, the
rotating cast of women – friends, ex-girlfriends- who often accompanied Leviev, giving him
an added sheen of respectability and enabling
him. If Leviev is just a psychopath – and
Fjellhoy, like Sjoholm, believes he is – what
was their deal? “I am interested to know how
he’ll respond to the film,” Fjellhoy tells me.
“He might be angry, but this is a man who
loves attention...” So it might just feel like
a massive wave of delicious international
attention to him? “Yes!”
I leave them with the distinct impression
this really could happen to any one of us.
Never mind how quick we are to protest we’re
somehow immune, and to formulate spurious
theories as to why Fjellhoy and Sjoholm
fell foul of a villain we’d see coming a mile
off... We are merely one swipe, one slightly
precarious life stage, one voice note with a
manipulative stranger away from a variation
on their situation, and we all know it, deep
down. This is exactly why catfishing stories
fascinate us, why they’re poised to be the
new true crime obsession of our times. n
The Tinder Swindler is on Netflix on February 2‘It’s not a situation
I would want to be in
at the age of 35 , fighting
to get my life back’
Leviev is arrested in Greece, July 2019EPA