Turkish intelligence officers and police detained HEX founder Richard Heart in Istanbul on October 14, 2026, according to Sözcü and Ihlas News Agency. Heart has been wanted under an Interpol Red Notice since December 2024, representing a global request to arrest someone pending extradition. The operation involved Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and Istanbul police, with investigators reportedly placing Heart's address under surveillance before the early morning operation. Heart was detained alongside his wife at a property in Istanbul's Beşiktaş district, as reported by Daily Sabah. Neither Turkish nor Finnish authorities have publicly confirmed the arrest, with reports from Sözcü indicating that his wife was also taken into custody during the operation. The Finnish probe is criminal, not civil, with Interpol flagging Heart as wanted at Finland's request. Heart's full name is Richard James Schueler, and his legal team has remained silent, not yet releasing a statement that confirms the claims. Turkish prosecutors, Finland's police, and Interpol also had no statements out at the time of writing verifying these claims.
The detention sent Heart's cryptocurrency projects plummeting sharply, with HEX falling nearly 60%, PulseX dropping 49%, and PulseChain's PLS token losing close to 36% in the immediate aftermath. CoinGecko data showed a 28.14% daily fall and a 29.42% decline over seven days for HEX. The market reaction reflects investor concerns about the legal proceedings and potential extradition, as reported by Sabah, which indicated that a transfer is under consideration, though no formal extradition request has been made public. Whether Heart faces those Finnish allegations in person now depends on extradition proceedings. It has not been confirmed whether Heart is still imprisoned or whether he has been extradited yet. At the time of the October 14 reports, Turkish authorities had not publicly detailed an extradition timetable, a court hearing date or formal new charges against Heart. The status of any Finnish extradition request, the treatment of the property reportedly seized in Istanbul and Heart's subsequent custody arrangements remained unconfirmed in the official records reviewed.
Finnish police suspect Heart of evading several hundred million euros in taxes between June 2020 and April 2024, according to broadcaster Yle. He was remanded in absentia in September 2024. Police told Yle that there was a lot of money involved and the tax issue appeared to have continued over several years. The suspected conduct covered the period between June 2020 at the earliest to April 2024 at the latest, with investigators alleging that Heart had failed to provide required business tax filings and omitted information from personal tax declarations. Finnish investigators described the suspected unpaid taxes as amounting to hundreds of millions of euros, though this was an investigative allegation, not a final tax judgment. The Finnish case dates back to 2024 and concerns suspected aggravated tax fraud and assault. Heart allegedly committed this tax conduct from June 2020 at the earliest to April 2024 at the latest, with police suspecting that his tax filings did not match the income assessed by Finland's Tax Administration. Heart was not convicted of these allegations. This Finnish investigation is completely separate from the US Securities and Exchange Commission's case connected to HEX, PulseChain, and PulseX.
Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and Istanbul police tracked Heart to a home in the Beşiktaş district, as reported by Sözcü. The seizure included approximately $4 million in cash, 64 luxury watches, electronic equipment, firearms, mobile phones, laptop computers, graphics cards, and drones. However, reports from different outlets show conflicting details about the specific items found. Sabah reported finding 53 Rolex and 11 Patek Philippe watches, plus approximately $4 million in vacuum-sealed cash, while Euronews Türkçe counted 24 watches, $600,000, €2,600, 50,000 Turkish lira, and 1,360 rounds of ammunition. The amounts vary sharply by outlet, with the most significant discrepancy being the cash amounts reported. As there is no official inventory, these figures cannot be substantiated independently. Previously, Heart has displayed luxury watches publicly and claimed to own collections worth millions of dollars in earlier social media posts.
Richard Heart's legal history includes a separate enforcement action brought by U.S. securities regulators. On July 31, 2023, the SEC charged Heart and three cryptocurrency projects associated with him, HEX, PulseChain, and PulseX, with conducting unregistered securities offerings. The regulator alleged that the offerings raised more than $1 billion in digital assets from investors. Its complaint said Heart began promoting HEX in 2018 and marketed the token as a high-yield blockchain-based certificate of deposit, with the HEX offering running from December 2019 through November 2020 and involving more than 2.3 million ETH. The SEC accused Heart of promoting returns through a staking feature that he claimed could generate annual yields as high as 38%. Regulators later examined fundraising arrangements connected to PulseChain and PulseX, alleging that between July 2021 and March 2022, Heart conducted additional offerings that raised hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency. The SEC alleged that Heart and PulseChain misappropriated at least $12 million of investor funds to purchase luxury goods, including expensive sports cars, watches, and a 555-carat black diamond known as The Enigma. The diamond was purchased using proceeds allegedly connected to the PulseChain offering. The SEC sought financial penalties, recovery of allegedly improper gains and court orders preventing further violations. On February 28, 2025, U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon granted Heart's motion to dismiss the lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York, ruling that the SEC had not adequately established personal jurisdiction over Heart, as he was living in Finland during the relevant period. The SEC declined to file an amended complaint on April 21, 2025, with Heart's legal team describing the outcome as a victory for their client.
