Q&A: How Tinder Swindler reporters broke the story
The Tinder scammer, on Netflix, is a gripping feature-length documentary about Shimon Hayut, an accused Israeli con man who, according to the film, posing as the son of a billionaire diamond dealer, lured women onto the dating app across Europe, invited them to join his lavish lifestyle of private jets and vacations in the islands, and eventually manipulated them into giving him a total of over $10 million.
The film, directed by Don’t fuck with cats producer Felicity Morris, caused an instant sensation. But its backbone is leather journalism: a months-long investigation by Erlend Ofte Arntsen, Natalie Remøe Hansen and Kristoffer Kumar, published in 2019 in Verden GangNorway’s largest newspaper.
Reporters first received the tip from Cecilie Fjellhøy, one of the women who alleges Hayut defrauded her. They searched the couple’s WhatsApp archives, found Hayut’s public records in several countries and flew to Israel and Germany to verify details.
The story they produced is sharp and inventive. While social media research has become its own kind of pop culture, the three have done the kind of work journalists and news outlets do best. CJR sat down with the VG team to discuss their work. The following has been edited for clarity.
When you first received the tip on Simon, what did you think of it? What made you decide to pursue the story?
Erlend Ofte Arntsen: The first thing that happened was that Cecilie contacted us in June 2018. It was just a simple email, but full of quite interesting words: private jets, luxury hotels, the son of a billionaire who scammed her. And she was able to give us two treasure troves of extremely important documents, her WhatsApp history and her credit card statements.
Natalie Remøe Hansen: Yeah, the whole relationship between Cecilie and Simon was documented every day, every minute, for months. We would be able to tell the story as if it were happening in real time – the format and layout of the audio clips and messages as well as the reporting – which was amazing. We could make the reader really feel what Cecilie was feeling and really understand what happened to her and why.
Kristoffer Kumar: It was a good story that we could tell through good journalism. It ticked all the boxes: good story, solid documentation, lots of visuals. And Cecilie was an excellent source. She was really communicative in a very good way.
Cultivating trust with a source is always so important, especially for something intimate and sensitive. What was this process like with Cecilie and the other women?
Remøe Hansen: I think it meant a lot to Cecilie that we had good control over her story. We had read the material carefully and really invested time listening to what she was telling us. She’s from Norway, so she knew VG, which is a big newspaper. But it was important for us and for her not to rush anything; we took all the time we needed and let her proofread before publishing.
Ofte Arntsen: In general, working on such a sensitive story for a period of a year of course led us to discuss everything, what is confidential, what is not. They all really understood the importance of clarifying all the facts, of having a good image.
What about safety precautions? There have been times in the story where things could have turned upside down, like when Pernilla confronted Simon in the parking lot. How did you plan these?
Ofte Arntsen: The Eve of Pernilla [Sjöholm] decided that she wanted to fly to Munich to meet Simon, we were very worried, as journalists. She was very adamant and 100% sure that she wanted to go all the way. At this point, you don’t want to make decisions for someone else. So I was totally indifferent. We decided to go with her, discussed everything with our bosses, etc. We knew we would do everything we could to make sure we avoided dangerous situations.
Remøe Hansen: I texted Pernilla all day, the day we were in Munich. She named me on her phone as someone else so in case Simon read it he wouldn’t understand anything. And we had a constant dialogue throughout the day. We tracked his location. So when it was time for them to go to dinner, we followed them closely and kept track.
Kumar: We were really excited, because it was the first time we could see this guy in person. And, of course, we got a lot of footage of Simon from the material we got from Cecilie’s phone. But it was really important for us to capture images of him for ourselves, for our story. And it was also really important for us just to see how he looked in real life, and if that picture matched who he was in the pictures we’ve seen before. So we took every precaution that night in the parking lot, but I think I felt safe. We were all cautious.
When the story broke on VG, what reaction were you and the women hoping for? What did you expect?
Remøe Hansen: I think with a story like this, you have to try to make people understand what situation these women were in. We spend a lot of time talking about Simon as a nice person. We are not saying categorically that he is a criminal or that the women were naive – we want people to understand how they fell in love with him, how they could give away such a large amount of money. We told them they would get good and bad feedback, and they were ready.
Ofte Arntsen: It was a big point for us before the publication that we specifically talked about the reactions on social networks. They could be called certain things. Now the story will air, and it’s still raining cats and dogs on social media. How do you prepare for something like this? How would the world react?
Remøe Hansen: After our publication in 2019, the story attracted a lot of attention. Much more than we were used to. We chose to post in English as well as Norwegian because we expected there would be more casualties, at least across Europe. And we got a lot of emails and phone calls, because at the time Simon was still on the run. We also received a lot of calls from production companies who wanted to make this documentary. But that decision was entirely up to Cecilie and Pernilla.
And now that the Netflix documentary has exploded, it’s getting a lot more attention again, two years later. This kind of online catfish scams and true internet crime is becoming more and more popular. Is it fair to say that this story is above all a journalistic enterprise?
Kumar: I think this story stood out because of the craziness of it all. It also received a lot of recognition because it was told in a way that pulled the reader in. It happened on a mobile phone and the viewer experiences it through the mobile phone. It could actually happen to anyone, you know – a guy you were in love with keeps sending you those messages, voicemails or videos, constantly. Con artists’ stories are often told in black or white, in movies as well as in traditional journalism. It was a different story of the two.
Paroma Soni is a member of the CJR.
TOP IMAGE: Felicity Morris, Bernie Higgins, Cecilie Fjellhøy and Pernilla Sjoholm attend a special UK screening of ‘The Tinder Swindler’, ahead of its launch. (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Netflix)