The Tinder Swindler: Why Isn't He In Jail?!

Ben Keith on You Can’t Make This Up on 10 February 2022

Ben Keith features on the podcast series, You Can't Make This Up.

Director of The Tinder Swindler Netflix documentary, Felicity Morris, speaks with barrister, Ben Keith, to understand why it's so hard to prosecute cons like the one Simon Leviev is accused of.

You can listen to the podcast here:

GQ Magazine picked up the podcast interview in a recent article on the Tinder Swindler:

As international criminal law expert Ben Keith told Netflix podcast The Making of a Swindler, although there is a European public prosecutor and police force, Europol, who could help with an investigation, it is more concerned with large-scale people trafficking, drug trafficking and terrorist networks. “[Hayut] is not the sort of individual that they are seeking to prosecute.”.

Ben is also quoted in an article on the Netflix website about the podcast episode:

“I don’t think anybody suggests that what he did was in a moral gray area. Or even necessarily in a legal gray area,” London barrister and international criminal law expert Ben Keith tells The Making of a Swindler hosts Morris and Higgins. It is just “very difficult” to gather enough evidence against someone who allegedly committed so many crimes across various jurisdictions.

“He's obviously lying to them about being in trouble. But then gets them effectively to commit fraud on credit card companies and loan companies to allow [the women] to get a higher limit to allow him to spend it,” Keith continues. “So actually he’s made the woman he’s dating an accessory to his fraud. To prosecute him in isolation of them is not as straightforward as it might seem.”

To find out more about The Making of a Swindler podcast click here.