Turkish Police Detain Hex Founder Richard Heart, Seizing 64 Luxury Watches and $4M Cash

Dawn Raid in Istanbul's Beşiktaş District

Turkish police and intelligence officers detained Richard Heart, the founder of Hex, in the early hours of Wednesday in an operation coordinated with Istanbul's chief prosecutor's office. Heart, whose legal name is Richard James Schueler, was taken into custody along with a woman identified as his wife at his address in the city's upscale Beşiktaş district, where officers had monitored the residence before moving in. Turkish news agency IHA reported that financial crimes investigators, Interpol personnel and special operations police joined the raid. The seizure inventory is striking: Turkish daily Sözcü reported roughly $4 million in cash in different currencies, 53 Rolex watches and 11 Patek Philippe pieces, plus firearms, ammunition, gold jewelry, laptops, graphics cards, storage devices, other crypto-related equipment, two drones and about a dozen mobile phones. Some Turkish outlets put the cash figure lower, at around $600,000 plus euro and lira sums, and the items' ownership and valuation have not been independently verified. Images circulated by Turkish journalists showed piles of cash, watches and electronics laid out from the apartment. Locally, Turkish media referred to the 47-year-old as “Balina James,” Turkish for Whale James, reflecting a decade-long profile as a prominent crypto whale. The operation rested on an Interpol Red Notice issued at Finland's request in December 2024; the notice lists a single charge, aggravated tax fraud, though Finnish authorities have also sought Heart over an alleged assault. A Red Notice asks police worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition; it is not an international arrest warrant in itself. Neither Turkish nor Finnish officials had publicly confirmed the detention as of Wednesday afternoon.

The $1 Billion SEC Case and the Finnish File

Heart launched Hex in 2018, in the middle of a bear market, marketing it as a high-yield “blockchain certificate of deposit.” In July 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Heart and three entities he controlled, Hex, PulseChain and PulseX, with conducting unregistered offerings of crypto asset securities that raised more than $1 billion, sold directly to buyers rather than through any crypto exchange. The complaint also accused him of misappropriating at least $12 million of investor funds for luxury goods, including sports cars, watches and a 555-carat black diamond known as “The Enigma.” That case ended without a ruling on the merits: a federal judge dismissed the complaint in February 2025 for lack of jurisdiction, finding that Heart's activities were not clearly aimed at U.S. investors, and the SEC declined to amend the pleading by an April deadline, formally ending the matter. Heart's lawyer called the outcome a complete victory. Finland's file, by contrast, kept moving. Finnish investigators opened a criminal probe into aggravated tax evasion tied to large cryptocurrency-related income, alongside an alleged assault involving a minor in 2021, and secured a warrant for his arrest in absentia. Earlier in that investigation, authorities seized about 20 luxury watches worth roughly $2.6 million at a property in Espoo, a step that placed Heart on Europol's wanted list. No court in any of these proceedings has convicted him.

Extradition Is the Open Question

The detention returns the operative legal risk to the place the SEC case never reached: Finland's tax charge, now attached to a live extradition question. Our reading is that the seizure list matters less as spectacle than as evidence; Turkish prosecutors building a financial-crimes file will treat 64 watches and multi-currency cash as material for tracing proceeds, and forfeiture claims typically follow. Hex predates the memecoin wave, but the personality-driven promotion that defined both eras is now colliding with actual criminal process. The dismissed U.S. case left every allegation untested, so a Finnish trial would be the first forum to rule on the merits. Watch for a formal extradition request from Helsinki and whether a Turkish court grants it.