End of game in Beşiktaş. Richard Heart, Richard James Schueler in the civil registry, fell Wednesday October 14 in the morning in this district of Istanbul. Turkish police and MIT intelligence arrested him and his wife. The founder of HEX and PulseChain was in fact the subject of an Interpol red notice since December 18, 2024, at the request of Finland.
Investigators took away a dozen phones, computers, weapons and cash in several currencies. In the process, the HEX token lost 34% in 24 hours. It is therefore trading at $0.00059 at the time of writing.
Key Points
Joint arrest of Turkish police and intelligence, after surveillance of the address.
The red notice only contains one charge, aggravated tax fraud.
The SEC dropped its complaint in 2025, the Finnish case remains intact.
Richard Heart arrested: what Turkish police found at his home
The most precise assessment comes from the Istanbul police. Turkish journalist Çağdaş Evren Şenlik relayed it, as did Decrypt, which cites Daily Sabah and the IHA agency. First, the police monitored the Beşiktaş apartment before intervening. Then, the list of seizures looks like a billionaire's garage sale: twelve phones, six laptops, eight towers, twenty graphics cards, two drones, 24 watches, twenty bracelets and seven gold chains. Added to this are 600,000 dollars, 2,600 euros and 50,000 Turkish liras in cash, then three pistols, four rifles and 1,360 cartridges. Some Turkish media, including Haberler, put forward $4 million and 64 watches. However, the police have not confirmed these figures. At this stage, no link between these objects and an offense has been established.
For those who follow the character, the setting is not surprising. Heart has indeed become known as much for its watches as for its tokens. Finnish police had already seized timepieces estimated at $2.6 million in 2024. Likewise, the SEC accused him of purchasing a 555-carat black diamond, “The Enigma”, with investors’ money.
The legal detail matters. An Interpol Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant. Rather, it is a request for location and provisional arrest with a view to extradition. The Istanbul Public Prosecutor's Office, financial crime section, coordinated the operation. For the moment, he has not published any press release. Turkey must therefore decide whether to hand over Richard Heart to Helsinki, and Finland must first make the request. However, Decrypt specifies that no extradition request was confirmed Wednesday evening.
On X, Turkish journalist Çağdaş Evren Şenlik broadcast images of the arrest. He also attaches the report drawn up by the Istanbul police:
This is how “Balina James” fell. Wanted by Interpol under red notice, Richard James Schueler, nicknamed “Balina James” [James the whale], was arrested with his wife during an operation in Beşiktaş, Istanbul. In this operation supported by the MİT, the police seized $600,000, 24 watches and 20 gold bracelets.
Çağdaş Evren Şenlik, Turkish journalist, on X, October 14, 2026 (translated from Turkish)
Finland is prosecuting Richard Heart for aggravated tax fraud, the only reason listed on the red notice. The authorities accuse him of not having declared his income for several years. They were also seeking to question him for an alleged attack on a 16-year-old teenager. This head, however, does not appear in the Interpol document. Finally, Europol included him on its list of most wanted criminals at the end of 2024.
On the American side, the sky had cleared. The SEC attacked him in 2023 for the unregistered sale of securities via HEX, PulseChain and PulseX, amounting to more than a billion dollars raised. She also accused him of the embezzlement of at least $12 million in sports cars and watches. But in February 2025, a federal judge dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction because the offers were not clearly aimed at American investors. The SEC then did not rewrite its file before the April 2025 deadline. Heart’s lawyer then spoke of “complete victory”.
The market does not wait for the courts. HEX lost 34% over 24 hours and PulseX (PLSX) 38%, according to CoinGecko this Thursday at 6 a.m. However, both tokens were already far from their 2021 highs, when HEX was trading above $0.40. Above all, a founder in detention in Istanbul does not help a community that has built its faith on his videos.
