Police had monitored Richard Heart’s address in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district before detaining him and his wife on Wednesday morning. Turkish Justice Minister Akın Gürlek confirmed that Heart, whose legal name is Richard James Schueler, was detained in Istanbul on October 14.
The detention was carried out under an Interpol Red Notice issued at Finland’s request on a charge of aggravated tax fraud. Istanbul police intelligence and financial-crime teams conducted the operation with support from Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization.
Officers carried out simultaneous searches at 15 addresses across the Beşiktaş, Üsküdar and Sarıyer districts. Police seized $7.15 million in cash and six cold wallets from Heart’s residence and other locations searched in the operation.
At the Istanbul residence, police also seized seven firearms and 1,400 rounds of ammunition. Other items taken included a dozen mobile phones, several laptops, graphics cards, rifles, pistols, two drones, gold bracelets and cash in different currencies.
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Police later detained three further people they identified as Heart’s bodyguards. It was not immediately clear whether Finnish authorities had requested Heart’s extradition from Turkey.
The case hit the markets around Heart’s cryptocurrency projects. HEX on Ethereum fell 31.1% over 22 hours after Turkish reports of his detention. On October 14, it fell 48.4% intraday, from $0.0008906 at 3:10 a.m. ET to $0.0004598 at 1:45 p.m. ET.
CoinMarketCap data put HEX’s decline at about 40% over 24 hours. PulseChain’s PLS token dropped about 36% over the same period, according to CoinMarketCap.
Heart launched Hex in 2018, promoting it as a high-yield ‘blockchain certificate of deposit’. He also created PulseChain, an Ethereum-derived blockchain whose native token is PLS.
In July 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Heart, HEX, PulseChain and PulseX. The regulator alleged unregistered offerings of crypto asset securities that raised more than $1 billion. It also accused Heart of misappropriating at least $12 million of investor funds for luxury goods, including sports cars, watches and a 555-carat black diamond called ‘The Enigma’.
A federal judge dismissed the SEC complaint in February 2025 for lack of jurisdiction, finding that Heart’s activities were not clearly aimed at US investors. Separately, The Defiant reported in December 2024 that Finnish police were seeking Heart over alleged tax evasion and assault. Heart has been subject to an Interpol Red Notice issued on Finland’s behalf since December 2024.
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