Richard James Schueler, known as Richard Heart, founder of the cryptocurrency HEX, was arrested on Wednesday morning in Istanbul, Türkiye, along with his wife, by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in coordination with MIT and Istanbul police. He was wanted under an Interpol Red Notice issued at Finland’s request over allegations of high-profile crypto fraud. Authorities seized over $7.15 million in cash in several currencies, along with firearms, ammunition, mobile phones, laptops, graphics cards, SSDs, drones and gold jewelry during searches. In 2023, the US SEC had charged him and HEX, PulseChain and PulseX for unregistered crypto asset securities offerings that raised over $1 billion from investors, and for allegedly misappropriating at least $12 million to buy sports cars, expensive watches and a 555-carat black diamond known as The Enigma. Following news of his arrest, the HEX token plunged nearly 50% on October 14, dropping from $0.00090 to $0.00046 in under 24 hours, before recovering to around $0.00060.
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