SARAH BUITENDACH: The year of the swindle

Move over serial killers, kidnappers and cult leaders — a new kind of true-life criminal has commandeered our TV screens and conversations.

We are mesmerised by their high-flying lives, their audacity and their shamelessness. They are bad people who’ve done bad things, yet we cannot resist their alluring net of luxury and lies. In fact, it’s the sheer sexiness of their schlenter that ensured they (almost) pulled it off in the first place.

This year, it seems, is fast becoming the year of the swindler. Now, it is true that people on the take are a perennial of the SA news cycle. If it weren’t for the city of Tshwane’s debt-gathering rampage, rent-seekers would entirely dominate the headlines.

But even though we’re jaded by SA’s stream of shifty fraudsters, we can’t seem to resist a yarn about a glitzy grifter like Simon Leviev (real name Shimon Yehuda Hayut).

The Tinder Swindler, the Netflix documentary about this Israeli native who conned women he matched with on dating app Tinder, has been a wild success since it premiered in early February.

It has trended on social media and spawned all kinds of memes.

Irresistibly smooth, Hayut painted a picture of supreme wealth, wooing women with lavish holidays, pictures of private planes and claims that he was part of a diamond empire.

He then coaxed a revolving door of victims/lovers into handing over cash or Amex cards which he swiftly maxed out: $60,000 here, $30,000 there. He needed an awful lot of cash to keep such a complicated and lush racket going. It must have been exhausting to execute and sustain, but the UK’s The Independent puts the amount he stole over the years at about $10m.

Would we also have been duped by the sharky Shimon? You’d want to say “no”, but ask the nice, trusting women who fell for it; the good life can beguile. Couple that with a well-crafted, googleable backstory, and a good dose of amour can get a trickster damn far.

Hayut and his ruse of riches is captivating, but you’ll find the more interesting and nuanced of the de rigueur swindlers in Netflix’s new nine-part series, Inventing Anna. It is the story of Anna Delvey (real name Anna Sorokin), the faux European heiress who hoodwinked Manhattan high society and large banks into parting with big bucks. The show riffs off the investigation and subsequent article by then New York Magazine journalist Jessica Pressler that exposed Sorokin to be less glam-gal-about-town, and more of a made-up hustler. It is deeply fascinating.

Bizarre accent and supersized glasses in tow, Julia Garner plays the wildly ambitious, opportunistic and dishonest Sorokin. You will be transfixed and confused by her faking her way up the echelons of New York society — via Ibiza boat trips and art galleries — pretending to be a young businesswoman building a members-only club. Is Garner’s Sorokin a sociopath or misunderstood? It’s impossible to say. Despicable behaviour melds easily into moments of vulnerability and kindness.

Hers is a disarming portrayal — and reading any real-life accounts of the fun-loving criminal, it seems on the money.

Believing “VIP is always better” was ultimately Sorokin’s undoing. Unpaid hotel and restaurant bills as well as debts owed to friends caught up with her. Like Hayut, she did time for her crimes, but has since been released.

Netflix allegedly paid Sorokin $320,000 for her story, most of which apparently went to pay debts and legal fees.

Thanks to the release of Inventing Anna, her fame has rocketed. Last week she told The New York Times that she’s in talks about a book deal, a documentary and a podcast.

Creepy Hayut continues to swan about the globe, instagramming himself in fancy cars. It’s also been reported that he’s signed up a Hollywood agent and is in talks about starring in a dating show.

Who said crime doesn’t pay?

*Buitendach is a contributing editor to the FM