Key Notes
- Turkish media report that Richard Heart was detained in Istanbul in an operation linked to a Finnish-requested INTERPOL Red Notice.
- CoinGecko’s afternoon snapshot showed Ethereum HEX down about 29%, PLS down 44% and the separate PulseChain HEX token down 53% over 24 hours.
- The Finnish criminal allegations remain distinct from the SEC civil case dismissed in 2025, and extradition has not been established.
Richard Heart, the founder of HEX and PulseChain, was reportedly detained in Istanbul on October 14 in a Turkish police operation supported by the country’s intelligence service. The reports emerged as tokens associated with his projects recorded sharp losses.
Heart, whose legal name is Richard James Schueler, was taken into custody in the Beşiktaş district on Wednesday morning, Daily Sabah reported, citing Ihlas News Agency. The account described surveillance followed by an operation involving Istanbul police’s intelligence and financial-crime units and the National Intelligence Organization, known as MIT.
The reports link the detention to an INTERPOL Red Notice requested by Finland. That criminal investigation is separate from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil case against Heart, which was dismissed in 2025.
HEX and PLS Record Steep Losses
At 14:34 UTC on October 14, CoinGecko data showed Ethereum’s HEX at approximately $0.0006466, down 29% over 24 hours. PulseChain’s native PLS token traded around $0.00000618, a decline of 43.6% over the same period.
The separately tracked PulseChain HEX token was around $0.001115, down 52.7%. CoinGecko maintains separate listings for HEX on Ethereum and PulseChain because their prices differ; treating them as one market would obscure the size of the moves.
Those figures are rolling daily changes, rather than a calculation of losses since the first detention report. They show the market backdrop as the news circulated, but do not establish how much of each decline was caused by the reported operation.
Turkish Reports Describe a Police Operation
Turkish public broadcaster TRT Haber also carried an Anadolu Agency account of a Beşiktaş operation against a foreign national identified by the initials R.J.S. It said police located the suspect with MIT’s support and took him into custody.
Daily Sabah identified the suspect as Heart and reported that officers seized electronic equipment, cash, jewelry and firearms. The accounts reviewed did not establish that he had been extradited or provide a final court decision on the allegations. The detention therefore remains attributed to the Turkish reports.
INTERPOL’s Red Notice system asks national authorities to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition or similar proceedings. It is an international alert, not an international arrest warrant, and each country applies its own laws when deciding whether to act.
The Finnish Investigation and SEC Case Are Distinct
In September 2024, Finnish broadcaster Yle reported, citing Helsinki police detective Harri Saaristola, that Schueler was suspected of gross tax evasion and assault. He had been remanded in custody in absentia on September 13 of that year.
Yle placed the suspected tax offenses between June 2020 and April 2024 and the suspected assault in February 2021. Saaristola said the tax investigation followed a request from Finland’s Tax Administration and concerned discrepancies between Schueler’s returns and the authority’s assessment. These were allegations, not findings of guilt.
The SEC’s separate July 2023 complaint alleged unregistered offerings involving HEX, PulseChain and PulseX that raised more than $1 billion, as well as misuse of at least $12 million. The $1 billion figure described the offerings, not an established amount stolen.
U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon dismissed that case on February 28, 2025. Her ruling addressed personal jurisdiction and the insufficiently pleaded U.S. connection of the claims. On April 21, the SEC filed a notice saying it would not amend its complaint.
The reported Turkish detention does not revive that dismissed civil action or resolve the Finnish allegations. As with CoinScreamer’s coverage of Binance’s separate DOJ review, the procedural step matters: a detention, an investigation and a final judgment carry different meanings. Further official information is needed to establish Heart’s custody status and any extradition proceedings.
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