The native token of the HEX ecosystem experienced a sharp and immediate market correction, tumbling nearly 30% over a 24-hour window following breaking local media reports that project founder Richard Schueler—widely recognized within the cryptocurrency community as Richard Heart—has been detained by law enforcement authorities in Istanbul, Turkey.
The digital asset, trading under the ticker HEX, declined precipitously to $0.0006 by 11:28 am UTC on Thursday. This severe downward pressure effectively wiped out approximately $160 million from the project’s overall valuation. According to data tracked and published by CoinMarketCap, the token’s market capitalization plummeted from a starting point of over $500 million on Wednesday down to $340 million by press time. This latest drop represents another dramatic chapter in the token’s history, standing in stark contrast to its all-time high valuation when HEX previously peaked at over $0.44 back in September 2021.
The catalyst for the market sell-off emerged on Wednesday when Turkish news outlet Ihlas Haber Ajansi (IHA) published a report detailing that Schueler, alongside his wife, had been apprehended in Istanbul during a joint operation conducted by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and local police security forces. According to the reporting by local media, law enforcement officers executing the operation also seized multiple electronic devices, hardware-based cryptocurrency wallets, high-value jewelry, and several handguns during the course of the detention.
The reported arrest in Turkey arrives nearly two years after Interpol, recognized as the world’s largest international police organization, officially issued a "Red Notice" for Schueler. The international alert was requested by Finnish authorities, who have been actively seeking his arrest in connection with serious allegations including tax fraud and assault. When contacted for further details regarding the ongoing international legal proceedings, a spokesperson representing Finland’s National Bureau of Investigations declined to provide immediate comment on the matter.
Further compounding his legal troubles across Europe, Schueler was previously featured prominently on Europe’s most wanted fugitives list under similar criminal allegations. Documented claims associated with those European warrants state that he allegedly "physically assaulted a 16-year-old victim by grabbing their hair, dragging them into the stairwell and knocking them to the ground."
The international warrants and recent Turkish detention add to an already complex web of regulatory and legal challenges that Schueler has faced across multiple jurisdictions over the past several years, most notably in the United States. In July 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) formally filed a civil lawsuit against Schueler. In its complaint, the regulatory agency alleged that he had improperly raised $1 billion from retail investors through an unregistered securities offering while simultaneously misappropriating at least $12 million of those funds for personal use.
However, the US legal battle took a notable turn in February 2025. US District Judge Carol Bagley Amon officially dismissed the SEC’s enforcement case against Schueler, ruling that the challenged commercial activities and token distributions were not sufficiently directed at United States investors to warrant federal securities oversight under the prevailing legal framework. Following that judicial setback, the SEC announced in April 2025 that it did not intend to refile or retry its securities fraud complaint against Schueler, effectively closing that chapter of the US regulatory pursuit while international criminal investigations and local detentions continued to unfold overseas.
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