Turkey Confirms HEX Founder Richard Heart's Arrest, Says Police Seized $7.15M and Six Cold Wallets
Published October 19, 2026, 8:40 AM PKT. Based on Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek's official statement on X on October 17, 2026 and Anadolu Agency reporting (primary sources), and October 17-18, 2026 reporting by The Block, Bitcoin.com News, KuCoin and TokenPost (secondary sources). This is a follow-up to MABOnChain's October 14, 2026 report on Heart's detention in Istanbul under an Interpol Red Notice.
Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek confirmed on Saturday, October 17, 2026 that HEX founder Richard James Schueler, known as Richard Heart, was detained in Istanbul on October 14, turning a week of Turkish media speculation into the first official acknowledgment of the arrest of one of crypto's most controversial founders. Police seized $7.15 million in cash and six cold wallets in searches across 15 addresses, Gurlek said, and investigators are now examining the seized material while judicial proceedings continue.
The minister's confirmation
Gurlek announced the detention in a post on X, describing Heart as a U.S. citizen reported to have an Interpol Red Notice issued against him over allegations of perpetrating $1 billion in cryptocurrency fraud in the United States and Finland. Heart was detained with his wife on Wednesday, October 14 in an operation in Istanbul's Besiktas district, according to the minister. Police later detained three more people identified as Heart's bodyguards. Istanbul's chief prosecutor's office ran the operation with the city police's intelligence and financial crimes units, supported by Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, MIT. Gurlek did not say whether Turkey has received an extradition request.
The $7.15 million seizure
Searches at 15 addresses in the Besiktas, Uskudar and Sarıyer districts recovered $7.15 million in U.S. currency and 160,000 Turkish lira, along with the six cold wallets, Gurlek said. Officers also seized four long-barreled rifles, three unlicensed pistols and 1,400 rounds of ammunition. The haul of personal property ran to 28 watches, 97 pieces of jewelry, 300 bags, 100 pairs of shoes, 136 pairs of glasses, 29 phones, 12 laptops, 11 computer towers, 19 solid-state drives and external disks, 46 USB drives and 19 graphics cards, according to KuCoin's account of the minister's statement. State news agency Anadolu separately reported that police impounded nine vehicles registered to Heart's wife. Earlier Turkish media reports on Wednesday had put the cash seized at $4 million and the watch count at 64, both figures the minister's statement revised upward.
The cases chasing Heart
The Interpol Red Notice was issued in December 2024 at Finland's request, where authorities sought him on suspicion of gross tax evasion and assault, according to TradingView News. In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Heart and three entities he controlled, HEX, PulseChain and PulseX, in 2023 of raising more than $1 billion through allegedly unregistered crypto securities offerings, and alleged that Heart and PulseChain misappropriated at least $12 million of the proceeds for luxury purchases. A federal judge dismissed the SEC case in February 2025 on jurisdictional grounds, and the agency declined to refile it that April. Heart has not been convicted of the alleged offenses.
HEX falls 14 percent as markets react
HEX, the Ethereum-based token Heart launched in 2019, fell about 14 percent over the past 24 hours following the confirmation, according to CoinGecko data cited by TradingView News. The token's slide came as traders weighed what the founder's custody means for the projects he built, a question now sitting with Turkey's prosecutors rather than the U.S. regulators Heart had fought for years.
This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.
Sources
- Akin Gurlek, Turkish Justice Minister, official X statement October 17, 2026, primary source: confirmation of the October 14 detention, the $7.15 million cash and six cold wallets seized, the wife and bodyguard detentions, the MIT-supported operation, the Interpol Red Notice framing
- Anadolu Agency, October 17-18, 2026, primary source: nine vehicles registered to Heart's wife impounded
- The Block, October 17, 2026, secondary source: the minister's confirmation, the 15-address searches, the seized cash, wallets, weapons and luxury goods, the Red Notice's Finland link
- Bitcoin.com News, October 17, 2026, secondary source: the detention alongside four others, the $7.15 million figure, the ongoing judicial proceedings
- KuCoin, October 18, 2026, secondary source: the full itemized seizure list including phones, laptops, drives and graphics cards
- TokenPost, October 17, 2026, secondary source: the Besiktas operation, the SEC's 2023 allegations and their 2025 dismissal, the Finnish notice
- TradingView News, October 17, 2026, secondary source: the December 2024 Red Notice date, the $1 billion fraud allegation, the 14% HEX decline per CoinGecko
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