Turkish authorities detained Richard Heart, the founder of the Hex cryptocurrency, in Istanbul on Wednesday after an Interpol Red Notice issued at Finland’s request, according to reporting cited by Decrypt. Heart was reportedly taken into custody alongside his wife.
Detention in Istanbul
The operation involved Istanbul police and Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, known as MIT. Turkish news agency IHA reported that officers had monitored Heart’s address in the Beşiktaş district before detaining him on Wednesday morning. Daily Sabah cited IHA in its account of the operation.
Authorities reportedly seized a dozen mobile phones, several laptops, graphics cards, firearms, two drones, gold bracelets and a substantial amount of cash in different currencies.
The Interpol notice was issued in 2024 at Finland’s request. Its listed charge is aggravated tax fraud. Finnish authorities have also sought Heart over an alleged assault, although it was not immediately clear whether Finland had formally requested his extradition from Turkey.
An Interpol Red Notice is a request to police agencies around the world to locate and provisionally arrest an individual while extradition or another legal process is considered. It is not, by itself, an international arrest warrant. Daily Sabah described the notice as involving high-value cryptocurrency fraud.
Background on Heart and Hex
Heart, whose legal name is Richard James Schueler, launched Hex in 2018. The project was promoted as a high-yield “blockchain certificate of deposit,” a description that compared its offering with a conventional certificate of deposit while using blockchain-based assets and mechanisms.
The detention adds an international law-enforcement development to Heart’s previous legal disputes. In 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Heart and three entities he controlled—Hex, PulseChain and PulseX—of conducting unregistered crypto-asset offerings that raised more than $1 billion.
The SEC also alleged that at least $12 million in investor funds was used to purchase luxury items. The items cited included sports cars, watches and a 555-carat black diamond called The Enigma.
A U.S. federal judge dismissed the SEC’s complaint in February 2025, finding that Heart’s activities were not clearly directed at U.S. investors and that the court therefore lacked jurisdiction. The SEC did not amend the complaint by an April deadline, bringing that case to an end. Heart’s lawyer described the result as “a complete victory.”
Market picture
Moneyiar market data recorded on October 15, 2026, at approximately 21:33–21:34 Tehran time showed mixed performance among the listed crypto assets:
- Polygon (prev. MATIC), now shown as POL, traded at $0.0959572691, up 0.20% over 24 hours but down 2.26% over seven days.
- Sei stood at $0.0624115738, gaining 0.55% in 24 hours and losing 6.07% over seven days.
- Telcoin was $0.0017756842, up 0.67% over 24 hours and down 3.02% over seven days.
These figures are Moneyiar data at the stated time and do not indicate the effect of the detention on any particular token.
