Richard Heart Arrested in Istanbul, Turkey's Justice Minister Confirms: What HEX, PLS and PLSX Holders Should Check Now

What Turkey says was seized

According to Gürlek's statement as reported by The Block and Trending Topics, searches of 15 addresses in Beşiktaş, Üsküdar and Sarıyer produced:

The operation was led by Istanbul's chief prosecutor's office with the police's intelligence and financial-crimes units and Turkey's intelligence agency, MİT. Earlier Turkish media reports on Wednesday had put the cash at $4 million and the watches at 64; the minister's Saturday figures supersede them. The judicial process and the examination of the seized material are ongoing.

The Finnish case and the SEC history

The Red Notice behind the arrest dates from December 2024 and was issued on behalf of Finland, which suspects Heart, whose legal name is Richard James Schueler, of gross tax evasion and assault. Gürlek also linked the notice to allegations of $1 billion in crypto fraud in the United States and Finland. The Block reached out to Helsinki police and to David Kirk, Heart's attorney in the SEC case, and had not received responses at publication.

The US side is closed for now. The SEC sued Heart in 2023, alleging he raised more than $1 billion through unregistered offerings of HEX, PulseChain and PulseX and misappropriated at least $12 million of investor funds; a federal judge dismissed the case in February 2025 on jurisdictional grounds, finding the projects had not specifically targeted US investors, and the SEC declined to refile in April 2025. The Finnish matter is a separate, criminal tax case, which is why an Interpol notice applies.

What the tokens did

The Block, citing CoinGecko, reported HEX down about 14 percent in the 24 hours after the news broke; KuCoin's news desk, citing CoinDesk, reported drops of up to 50 percent across PLS, HEX and PLSX in the first day. A week later the seven-day numbers show the damage held: the PulseChain gas token has lost two fifths of its value and the DEX token half. The small positive 24-hour print on PLS is a bounce inside that fall, not a recovery.

Where you can actually sell

We checked the public symbol lists of OKX, Bitget, Gate, HTX and MEXC on 18 October: none lists a HEX, PLS or PLSX spot pair. CoinGecko's ticker data for HEX shows trading concentrated on Uniswap on Ethereum, where the largest pool (HEX/WETH on Uniswap V2) handled about $77,000 in 24 hours and the next largest about $20,000. For PLS, the only centralised venues CoinGecko lists are Kanga Global and SafeTrade with a few hundred dollars of daily volume each; the real market is PulseX on PulseChain itself.

That has three consequences for anyone holding size:

1. Slippage is the price. A pool doing $77,000 a day cannot absorb a five-figure sale without moving the quote. Split orders, set a slippage limit, and compare the quote against the CoinGecko price before confirming.
2. PulseChain assets need a bridge to leave. PLS and PLSX live on PulseChain; moving value to Ethereum or a centralised exchange means a bridge transaction first. Use our pre-transfer checklist and send a small test amount before the main one.
3. The Ethereum HEX and the PulseChain HEX are different tokens. Each chain has its own HEX contract and its own pools. Check which one you hold and which one a quote refers to before you swap.

The scams that follow a headline

Arrest news is a magnet for impersonation. Expect posts and direct messages claiming to raise a legal-defence fund, to airdrop a "relaunch" token, or to offer an emergency buyback for your HEX. Our lesson on scam red flags lists the patterns; the short version is that no official channel asks you to send tokens anywhere, and any link that asks a wallet to sign an approval for an unknown contract should be closed. Projects whose founder is in custody have no one to issue an official statement quickly, so silence from the official accounts is normal and a sudden "official" announcement with a wallet address is the thing to distrust.

If you move out, where the proceeds go

Once value is back in a major asset on Ethereum, the remaining decision is where to hold or trade it. Both of our featured venues take ETH and USDT deposits from an external wallet: Bitget with code nexu888, and OKX with the same code, nexu888, which attaches the NexuAlpha fee rebate to the account. Neither lists HEX or PLS, so the bridge and the DEX swap come first; the exchange is for what you do with the result.

Quick answers

Is Richard Heart in custody? Yes. Turkey's justice minister confirmed on 17 October that he was detained in Istanbul on 14 October; the judicial process is ongoing.

Why was he arrested? On an Interpol Red Notice issued in December 2024 at Finland's request for suspected aggravated tax fraud and assault.

Has he been extradited? No. Gürlek did not say whether Turkey has received an extradition request.

How much have HEX and PLS fallen? Over seven days to 18 October: HEX −33.3%, PLS −39.6%, PLSX −50.3%, per CoinGecko.

Can I sell HEX on a major exchange? Not on OKX, Bitget, Gate, HTX or MEXC as of 18 October; HEX trades on Uniswap, PLS and PLSX on PulseX.

Does the arrest affect my wallet? No. Tokens in a wallet you control are unaffected by the founder's legal situation; liquidity and price are what changed.

What we could not verify

Gürlek's X post was read through The Block's and Trending Topics' reporting rather than fetched directly. Finnish authorities have not published the charges in detail, and the $1 billion fraud figure is the minister's characterisation of allegations, not a court finding. PulseX pool depths were not measured; the liquidity figures above are CoinGecko's Uniswap and centralised-exchange tickers for HEX and PLS.