Turkey's Justice Ministry confirmed on October 17 that Richard James Schueler, the crypto founder known as Richard Heart, was detained in Istanbul three days earlier. The ministry said investigators seized $7.15 million in cash and six cold wallets during related searches. Its statement establishes the detention and reported seizures, not the truth of the financial allegations it cited or the amount of cryptocurrency, if any, held on the devices.

What Turkish authorities reported

Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said Schueler and his wife were taken into custody in an October 14 operation in the Beşiktaş district. Three people described by the minister as his bodyguards were detained subsequently. The Istanbul chief prosecutor's office coordinated the operation, with city police financial-crimes and intelligence units and support from Turkey's national intelligence agency, according to the ministry's October 17 release.

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Authorities searched 15 addresses across Beşiktaş, Üsküdar and Sarıyer, the release said. Alongside the dollar cash and six cold wallets, the ministry listed 160,000 Turkish lira, phones, computers and storage media among the material seized. Gürlek said examination of digital evidence and legal proceedings are continuing. Anadolu Agency independently reported the minister's announcement and said nine vehicles registered to Schueler's wife were impounded in the ongoing investigation.

A detention, not a finding of guilt

The ministry described Schueler as the subject of an Interpol Red Notice connected to alleged crypto fraud involving the United States and Finland. That is the Turkish minister's characterization. The Block reported that the notice was issued at Finland's request and concerns suspected tax evasion and assault, while a separate U.S. securities lawsuit against Heart was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds in 2025. Interpol says a Red Notice requests a person's location and provisional arrest; it is not an international arrest warrant. The ministry announcement does not publish a court judgment establishing fraud. Nor does it say whether an extradition request has been received, what charges Turkish prosecutors may bring, or when the detainees could appear in court. The Block said it had sought comment from Finnish police and a lawyer who represented Heart in the U.S. case.

Heart is associated with HEX and PulseChain, which is why the detention has immediate relevance for digital-asset readers. It does not, by itself, establish that either network has stopped functioning or that user assets have been seized. A cold wallet is a device or storage method used to keep cryptographic keys offline. Finding six such devices says nothing conclusive about the balances accessible through them, who controls those balances, or whether investigators can access them. None of those details was supplied in the ministry release. That limit is important for readers trying to assess the financial impact: the number of devices is not a measure of funds, and seizure of hardware is not evidence of a transfer of tokens.

What to watch next

The distinction between the October 14 operation and its October 17 official confirmation matters: the fresh development is the ministry's detailed public account, not a new arrest on Saturday. Further court filings, a statement from the defense, or an official inventory of digital assets could clarify the legal basis and economic scope. Those developments would also help distinguish criminal procedure in Turkey from any separate proceedings abroad. Until then, the seizure figures should be attributed to Turkish authorities, and the alleged fraud should remain an allegation. The reported cash figure should not be combined with an assumed crypto-wallet value to produce an unsupported total.

Sources

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