Istanbul police, backed by Turkey's MİT intelligence service, raided an apartment in the Beşiktaş district before dawn on October 14. Among those detained was Richard Heart, the man behind the HEX token and the PulseChain blockchain. His wife was taken into custody alongside him.
The arrest has nothing to do with the crypto fraud claims that have dogged Heart in the United States for years. Turkey acted on a request from Finland, which had flagged Heart on an Interpol Red Notice over alleged aggravated tax fraud; Finnish police are also looking into an assault case. A Finnish court had already ordered him held in absentia back in September 2024.
Searches turned up roughly $4 million in cash across dollars, euros and Turkish lira, gold jewelry, electronics, three handguns and four long-barreled rifles. Turkish outlets zeroed in on one detail in particular: 64 luxury watches, the kind Heart has flaunted on camera for years — in a 2022 clip he put his collection's value at $10 million.
HEX launched in 2019 as a "savings" token promising interest for locking up coins, a design plenty of analysts described bluntly as a Ponzi scheme. In July 2023 the SEC sued, claiming Heart raised over $1 billion through HEX, PulseChain and the PulseX exchange without registering the offerings, and diverted at least $12 million into watches, cars and property. A judge threw the case out in February 2025 for lack of jurisdiction, and the SEC chose not to refile in April, citing insufficient evidence — meaning on the crypto charges specifically, Heart had walked.
Markets delivered a harsher verdict than any court. HEX shed roughly a quarter of its value within a day and now trades 99% below its 2021 peak; PLS dropped nearly 35% and sits about 98% under its launch price. Detention doesn't mean extradition, let alone conviction — but after years of regulatory back-and-forth, Heart finally has a case that ended in handcuffs rather than legal filings.
