“Girls, watch the movie! Many of you will definitely see the resemblance to Ronald Alpe. Google his face and stay away! He’s got a lot of profiles, girls. And many different names. Therefore, remember his face so as not to get into trouble, ”said the singer and model Liene Ushakova (Liene Ušakova).
In early February, Netflix released The Tinder Swindler, a documentary about an Israeli native who met women by pretending to be the son of a billionaire, then swindled them out of large sums and spent them to woo other women.
Israeli Shimon Hayut posed as the son of billionaire Lev Leviev, owner of the diamond mining company LLD Diamonds. He met girls on Tinder, courted him beautifully, and if they checked him on social networks, then they had Instagram pages at their service, where “Simon Leviev” posed in clothes of expensive brands, in the cabins of private jets and exclusive cars.
He told his girlfriends that he was in danger and needed money. The gullible women, who at that time were already in love and believed in their boyfriend, took out loans to help him financially, but in the end he disappeared with the money, leaving them with a broken heart and an empty wallet.
The film says that the swindler managed to swindle ten million dollars from his victims.
In 2018, Liene Ushakova exposed her ex-lover Ronalds Alpe on her Facebook page. She posted screenshots of correspondence and an audio recording.
Hundreds of deceived women responded. In the comments, some girls even admitted that they were expecting a child from him. Liene wrote in detail about her passionate romance. In particular, how she shared her sexual fantasies and even sent a candid video. Liene’s passport and other data also became available to the swindler.
But unlike the Netflix documentary character, Ronald Alpe wasn’t just scamming women. In 2020, he was sentenced to three years of probation and a fine of 8,600 euros for attempted fraud on a large scale.
According to the program De facto (LTV), Ronald Alpe tried to swindle 215 thousand euros from businessman Ernest Bernis (Ernests Bernis). This is part of a one million euro reward that the self-liquidating bank offered for information that would indicate corrupt practices by officials in the Latvian financial industry. In reality, Alpe managed to get a much smaller amount.
For example, in a cafe on the street. Antonijas Alpe sent his friend to pick up two parcels. The first time it was a box of cigars and 500 euros. The second one contained a gift bag containing a bottle of whiskey and 20,000 euros. The next step in Alpe’s plan was to claim that he had a computer with secret incriminating information recorded. ABLV Bank, he promised to transfer the computer through the laundry on the street. Elizabetes. The computer was received but it turned out to be password protected. For his transfer, Alpe demanded 15 thousand euros from the bank.
During these episodes, Alpe, who was hiding behind a fictitious identity, was contacted by the head of the bank’s security department on behalf of Bernis. They decided not to pay money for the password, as there were suspicions of fraud.
In parallel, Alpe contacted Bernis via email, pretending to be one of his acquaintances. Bernis instructed his lawyer Janis Karklinsh to correspond with a potential informant. Here, Alpe demanded a reward of 200 thousand euros for providing information.
“He actually contacted us through Latvian e-mail servers, mobile phones. Then it seemed that such a person could not be a swindler. After all, the scammer is usually hiding. Then he provided, I would say, certain information. These were printouts of emails, fragments of audio recordings that gave reason to believe that a person might actually have something. (..) Well, then quickly, after 2-3 days, we realized that this was actually an attempt at fraud, since the audio that we were given was made at an open meeting of the Riga City Council nine years ago, where they spoke in some aspect about administrators, but it was taken out of context,” lawyer Janis Karklinsh explained.
Then the representatives of the bank contacted the State Police. Following the developed plan, they continued to communicate with the fraudster for about a month. In the end, an agreement was reached that he would receive 50,000 euros from Karklinsh’s office.
Alpe sent his friend for the money, who knew nothing about illegal actions. As soon as he received a box of whiskey with money, he was immediately detained by the police. Nearby, Alpe himself was detained, the premises of which were located one block from the lawyer’s office.
Alpe quickly pleaded guilty. He returned 20,000 euros to Bernis before the first hearing, so the court decided not to sentence him to a real prison sentence.
In this story, De facto also reported on another episode.