Crypto

Hex Founder Richard Heart Arrested in Istanbul

co-produced by AI18. October 2026, 10:56

The Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul with boats on the water — The Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. © Adnan Uludag / Unsplash

Cash, cold wallets and guns: Turkish police have arrested Richard Heart, the founder of the controversial crypto projects Hex and PulseChain, in Istanbul. Turkey’s justice minister, Akın Gürlek, confirmed the arrest on X on Saturday, The Block reports. Mr. Heart, whose legal name is Richard James Schueler, had already been detained along with his wife in the Beşiktaş district last Wednesday. Police later detained three more people they described as his bodyguards.

$7 Million in Cash

The list of seized items is long. In searches of 15 addresses in Beşiktaş, Üsküdar and Sarıyer, investigators seized the following, according to Mr. Gürlek:

Cash: $7.15 million (about €6.4 million) and 160,000 Turkish lira
Crypto: six cold wallets and 19 graphics cards
Weapons: four long guns, three unlicensed pistols and 1,400 rounds of ammunition
Luxury goods: 28 watches, 97 pieces of jewelry and 300 bags

According to the state news agency Anadolu, nine vehicles registered to Mr. Heart’s wife were also seized. The operation was led by Istanbul’s chief prosecutor’s office with support from Turkey’s intelligence agency, MİT. The investigation and the examination of the seized items are ongoing.

A Finnish Warrant

The arrest stems from an Interpol Red Notice issued at Finland’s request in December 2024. Finnish authorities accuse Mr. Heart of aggravated tax fraud and assault. Mr. Gürlek also linked the notice to allegations that Mr. Heart committed $1 billion (about €892 million) in crypto fraud in the United States and Finland. He did not say whether an extradition request has been filed. Mr. Heart is presumed innocent.

The S.E.C. Lost in Court

Mr. Heart has also had run-ins with the authorities in the United States. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued him in 2023, alleging that he raised more than $1 billion through unregistered securities offerings with Hex, PulseChain and PulseX. It also accused him of misappropriating at least $12 million (about €10.7 million) in investor funds, CoinDesk reports. A federal judge dismissed the case in February 2025, ruling that the projects had not specifically targeted American investors. In April 2025, the S.E.C. decided not to refile.

The arrest has left its mark on the crypto market. The Hex token lost about 14 percent of its value within 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.

Why Hex and PulseChain Are Controversial

Mr. Heart’s projects have long been viewed with suspicion in the crypto world. PulseChain is a small fork of Ethereum that plays hardly any role in the crypto market and, according to an earlier Trending Topics report (in German), did not even rank among the top 5,000 crypto assets. Anyone who wants to buy tokens there first has to go through the cumbersome process of swapping their money into Ether or a stablecoin and then moving it via the so-called PulseBridge. The discredited blockchain has also surfaced in Austria: In early 2025, after appearing on the Puls4 start-up show “2 Minuten 2 Millionen,” the Vorarlberg-based founder Wolfgang Grabher promoted the SOIL token of his snack company SUN. The token ran on PulseChain, of all places, and was not listed on any crypto exchange.