The SEC Couldn't Touch Richard Heart. A Finnish Tax Case Just Got Him Picked Up by Turkish Intelligence

In February 2025, a US federal judge threw out the SEC’s case against Richard Heart. The agency had alleged that HEX, PulseChain and PulseX raised more than $1 billion. The judge dismissed it because the court lacked jurisdiction over him. His lawyer called it “a complete victory.”

On Wednesday, according to Turkish media reports, police and Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) picked him up in Istanbul anyway.

They weren’t acting for the SEC. The Red Notice behind it came from Finland, and it’s about taxes.

---

What Happened

On October 14, 2026, Turkish police and MİT reportedly detained Richard Heart (legal name Richard James Schueler) at an address in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district. Police had reportedly been watching the address before the raid. His wife, identified only by the initials A.K., was reportedly detained as well.

The report came from Turkey’s Ihlas News Agency (IHA) and was relayed by Daily Sabah. Decrypt, Crypto Briefing, Cointelegraph and others picked it up from there.

There has been no official confirmation from Turkish, Finnish or Interpol authorities so far. Heart and his lawyers haven’t commented publicly. Nobody has said whether he’s still in custody, whether Finland has filed an extradition request, or whether Turkish prosecutors plan any charges of their own.

---

What Police Reportedly Seized

According to IHA, as cited by Decrypt and Crypto Briefing, searches turned up:

• About a dozen mobile phones and several laptops
• Graphics cards
• Rifles and pistols
• Two drones
• Gold bracelets
• A large amount of cash in several currencies

Turkish newspaper Sözcü went further, as reported by Crypto Times. It said the haul included roughly $4 million in cash, 53 Rolex watches, 11 Patek Philippe watches, cold wallets and encrypted hard drives. Other outlets reported much smaller cash figures, around $600,000. No official inventory has been released, so treat every number in this section as unconfirmed.

---

The Warrant: Finland, Not Washington

Interpol issued the Red Notice in 2024 at Finland’s request. Its listed charge is aggravated tax fraud. Finnish authorities have also reportedly sought Heart over an alleged assault.

According to Crypto Briefing, earlier reporting placed the suspected tax evasion between June 2020 and April 2024 and the alleged assault in February 2021. In 2024, Finnish media reported that a court had ordered him held in custody in absentia.

A Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant. It asks police worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest someone while extradition is worked out. Whether he ends up in Helsinki now depends on Turkish courts and on Finland.

---

The SEC Case He Already Beat

The SEC’s version of the story:

• July 31, 2023: The SEC sued Heart, HEX, PulseChain and PulseX in the Eastern District of New York over unregistered offerings that raised more than $1 billion.
• The complaint also alleged he spent at least $12 million of investor money on luxury goods. A court never tested that claim.
• February 2025: Judge Carol Bagley Amon dismissed the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. She found the SEC hadn’t shown enough US contacts. The ruling didn’t decide whether the allegations were true.
• April 2025: The SEC declined to amend its complaint, and the case ended.

That’s how jurisdictional arbitrage is supposed to work: a US regulator can’t reach you if you aren’t in the US. But the US isn’t the only country with tax authorities, and Interpol notices work across borders.

---

Why This Matters for Crypto Jobs

1. “Offshore” protects you from fewer regulators than it used to. Founders have long assumed that leaving the US meant leaving US enforcement behind. This case suggests the bigger exposure may be the tax authority in the country where you actually lived. The demand for cross-border tax counsel, compliance leads and entity-structuring specialists at crypto firms isn’t going away, and this week’s news gives every founder one more reason to hire them.

2. Founder risk is a career risk. If you build on PulseChain, or work for any project where one person holds the keys, the brand and the treasury, one Red Notice can take down your roadmap. Ask how dependent a project is on a single founder before you join it. Look at who controls the multisig, who can ship upgrades, and whether the ecosystem keeps running if that person disappears.

3. Investigations need investigators. Interpol asset-tracing programs, Finnish tax authorities and Turkish intelligence are all chasing crypto money. That keeps hiring strong for on-chain forensics analysts, AML investigators and blockchain intelligence roles, both in government and at firms like Chainalysis and TRM Labs.

---

The Bottom Line

Heart beat the SEC on jurisdiction. On Wednesday, according to Turkish media, a Finnish tax case caught up with him in Istanbul. Whether he gets extradited is still unclear, and the reported seizure figures are still unverified.

---

Want to work in crypto without betting your career on one founder? Browse thousands of Web3 roles in compliance, forensics, engineering and more at Cryptogrind, the job board built for people who actually ship.