Turkey Confirms Richard Heart’s Detention and Reports $7.15 Million Cash Seizure
The announcement adds official details to the Istanbul operation involving the HEX founder. His detention, Finland’s allegations and the dismissed US securities case are separate legal developments.
Turkey’s justice minister has confirmed the detention of Richard Heart, the founder of crypto projects HEX and PulseChain, and reported the seizure of $7.15 million in cash and six cold wallets during related searches in Istanbul.
The Block published the confirmation at 2:14 PM EDT on October 17 and updated its report four minutes later. According to that report, Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said the operation took place on October 14. The minister’s announcement provides an account of an operation carried out three days earlier.
Heart, whose legal name is Richard James Schueler, was detained with his wife. Three people described as his bodyguards were subsequently detained, the minister said. The Block reported that searches covered 15 addresses and that examination of the seized materials was continuing.
Cash and wallets are different categories of evidence
The reported cash total should not be read as a valuation of cryptocurrency held in the six wallets. The account reviewed for this article does not establish their balances, ownership of every associated asset or whether investigators obtained control of any funds.
A wallet device, access to its contents and a legally established claim over those contents are different things. The number of devices seized cannot be converted into an estimate of recoverable crypto assets. Nor does a seizure announcement establish that any particular token holder will receive compensation. The guide to how a Bitcoin ETF changes ownership and custody discusses a separate structure in which custody and the investor’s legal interest also need to be distinguished.
Those limits are material to the financial interpretation of the news. The available information describes an investigation and physical seizures. It does not provide a court-approved accounting of assets available for restitution.
The Finnish allegations predate the Istanbul operation
Finland’s public broadcaster Yle reported in September 2024 that police suspected Schueler of aggravated tax evasion. Its report described the case as an investigation into alleged unpaid taxes. That investigation predates the Istanbul operation by more than two years.
The Block’s Saturday account says an Interpol Red Notice had been issued on Finland’s behalf in December 2024, relating to suspected tax evasion and assault. These remain allegations. Detention is not a conviction.
Interpol explains that a Red Notice asks police to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar proceedings. Countries apply their own laws when deciding what action to take. The notice itself does not settle guilt or determine the outcome of a national case.
Seized property is not an established recovery for claimants
A reported seizure describes property taken into official custody. It does not by itself establish its ultimate ownership, whether it is connected to a particular allegation or whether it will be returned or distributed. Those questions require further legal findings and procedures. Readers should therefore keep the reported cash amount separate from any estimate of compensation available to investors, which the information reviewed here does not establish.
The US securities case followed a separate path
The SEC previously pursued a civil lawsuit involving Heart and his crypto projects. A US federal judge dismissed that case in 2025 on jurisdictional grounds, as reported at the time by The Block.
That ruling concerned whether the SEC had established sufficient connections to the United States for the case to proceed. It did not decide the underlying fraud and securities allegations on their merits. Equally, the existence of those allegations should not be presented as a current US criminal conviction.
Keeping the proceedings separate avoids two misleading conclusions: that dismissal of the SEC case resolved every allegation worldwide, or that the Turkish detention proves the SEC’s earlier claims. Neither follows from the records reviewed here.
The outstanding questions concern the legal basis for continued detention, any extradition request, the identification of assets and the next court proceedings. Saturday’s confirmation supplies more detail about the operation. It does not resolve those questions or establish a recovery outcome for investors.