Turkish Authorities Detain Hex Founder Richard Heart in Istanbul Following Interpol Red Notice

Turkish law enforcement authorities have detained Richard Heart, the controversial founder of the Hex cryptocurrency, during a targeted operation in Istanbul. According to local reports citing the Turkish news agency IHA, Heart was taken into custody on Wednesday morning based on an active Interpol Red Notice issued at the request of international authorities.

Heart, whose legal name is Richard James Schueler, was apprehended alongside his wife at a residential address in Istanbul’s upscale Beşiktaş district. The arrest was the culmination of a joint operation executed by officers from the Istanbul Police Department and Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, commonly known as the MIT. Law enforcement personnel had reportedly monitored Heart’s whereabouts and established surveillance on his residence prior to moving in to execute the detention.

During the raid on Heart’s Istanbul residence, security forces uncovered and seized a substantial collection of items. According to the IHA report, officers confiscated a dozen mobile phones, multiple laptops, high-performance graphics cards, rifles, pistols, two drones, gold bracelets, and a significant quantity of physical cash denominated in various international currencies. The eclectic mix of seized assets highlights the high-profile and mobile nature of the lifestyle maintained by the crypto founder while operating abroad.

The detention stems from an international Red Notice issued by Interpol in 2024, which was formally requested by Finnish authorities. An Interpol Red Notice functions as a global alert to law enforcement agencies worldwide, asking them to locate and provisionally detain an individual pending extradition proceedings or similar legal actions. Crucially, a Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant in its own right, but rather a request for cooperation among member states.

The official Interpol notice lists a single primary charge against Heart: aggravated tax fraud. However, Finnish authorities have also sought him in connection with separate allegations involving an assault. Daily Sabah, a prominent Turkish daily newspaper that broke local coverage of the operation, further characterized the international legal actions against Heart as being directly tied to allegations of high-value cryptocurrency fraud. As of Wednesday, it remained unclear whether Finnish diplomatic and legal representatives had formally initiated formal extradition requests through Turkish diplomatic channels to secure Heart’s transfer to Finland.

Heart and Hex

The high-profile arrest in Istanbul adds another turbulent chapter to the career of Richard Heart, who first burst into the broader financial and technology spotlight when he launched the Hex cryptocurrency in 2018. Heart aggressively marketed Hex to retail investors as a high-yield "blockchain certificate of deposit," promising substantial returns and positioning the digital asset as a lucrative alternative to traditional banking instruments. The project quickly garnered a passionate online following, drawing significant capital into the ecosystem as cryptocurrency markets expanded.

However, Heart’s projects eventually attracted the intense scrutiny of regulatory bodies, most notably the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2023, the SEC formally charged Heart alongside three corporate entities under his direct control: Hex, PulseChain, and PulseX. The federal regulatory agency accused Heart and his associated platforms of conducting massive, unregistered offerings of crypto asset securities that had collectively raised more than $1 billion from unsuspecting or speculative investors.

Beyond the core allegations of unregistered securities offerings, the SEC’s 2023 civil complaint leveled severe accusations of personal financial misconduct against Heart. The regulator alleged that the crypto founder had misappropriated at least $12 million of investor funds intended for project development to instead finance an extravagant lifestyle. According to the SEC filing, these misappropriated funds were used to purchase a suite of ultra-luxury goods, including high-end sports cars, exclusive designer watches, and a massive 555-carat black diamond famously known in media reports as "The Enigma."

Despite the sweeping nature of the SEC’s allegations and the scale of the enforcement action, the U.S. legal case against Heart took a dramatic turn in early 2025. In February of that year, a federal judge officially dismissed the SEC’s complaint against the crypto founder, ruling that the court lacked proper subject-matter jurisdiction over the case. The presiding judge concluded that Heart’s promotional and operational activities were not sufficiently or clearly aimed at U.S. investors to justify American regulatory reach.

Following the dismissal, the SEC faced a court-imposed deadline to amend its complaint and address the jurisdictional shortcomings identified by the bench. When the regulatory agency ultimately declined to amend the filing by the April deadline, the legal challenge effectively came to an end. At the time, legal representatives for the cryptocurrency founder hailed the outcome as a complete and decisive victory against U.S. regulatory overreach.

Even with the resolution of his legal battles in the United States, Heart’s international legal standing remains precarious. With his recent detention by Turkish intelligence and police forces in Istanbul, Heart now faces the immediate reality of foreign extradition proceedings and criminal charges originating from European jurisdictions, bringing his global travels and multi-jurisdictional lifestyle to an abrupt halt.