Has Richard Heart been convicted of anything?
No. As of 17 October 2026 no court in any country has convicted him. One case is closed in his favour (SEC), one is an investigation with no charges (Finland), and one is a detention whose later course is not public (Turkey). The ProveX matter consists of claims by on-chain analysts; no authority has taken it up. An accusation, a search notice or a detention is not a verdict.
What did the SEC case decide — and what did it not?
The SEC sued in July 2023 over unregistered sales of HEX, PLS and PLSX and alleged that $12.1 M of sacrifice funds were misused. On 28 February 2025 Judge Carol Bagley Amon dismissed every claim: the court had no personal jurisdiction over Heart, and independently the complaint did not allege domestic transactions, so U.S. securities law did not reach them. The SEC declined to amend, and judgment for the defendants followed on 6 May 2025.
What the order did not do: it did not rule on whether HEX, PLS or PLSX are securities, and it made no finding on whether the alleged misuse of funds happened. The accurate summary is “dismissed in full on jurisdictional and extraterritorial grounds; judgment for the defendants” — not “found innocent”, and not “the SEC dropped the case”.
What is he suspected of in Finland?
Helsinki Police suspect aggravated tax fraud covering 2 June 2020 to 2 April 2024. Police say it concerns earned income from the crypto business, and on 14 October 2026 they put the avoided tax at about €280 M. The Helsinki District Court ordered him remanded in absentia in September 2024, and Finland’s ENFAST unit listed him on the EU Most Wanted site in December 2024.
Police also named a suspected assault from February 2021. The last official listing seen (June 2025) still included it; no source says it was dropped, while the Red Notice is reported to cover only the tax offence and the October 2026 Finnish reports mention only tax. Its status is therefore open. The original police release of September 2024 could not be found; Yle quoted the lead investigator directly.
No charges, trial or verdict exist. His only public reaction found was a short X post in December 2024 reported by The Block — a remark, not a legal response. No statement from a Finnish lawyer has been found.
Why was he detained in Turkey, and what comes next?
The basis is the Interpol Red Notice issued at Finland’s request. According to the minister, the operation on 14 October 2026 was coordinated by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office with police intelligence and financial-crimes units and the national intelligence service. A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement in other countries to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition; it is not an international arrest warrant.
What is not public as of 17 October 2026:
- any Turkish court decision on custody after the detention — formal arrest, judicial control or release;
- any Turkish charge of its own (Sabah reports that “the investigation is continuing”);
- any extradition request from Finland; neither country has announced one.
The minister’s post describes Heart as wanted in the US and Finland over an alleged crypto fraud of about $1 billion. That framing does not match the record: the US matter was a civil case that ended in his favour, and the Finnish matter is a tax-fraud suspicion. The post does not say where its figure comes from; we note that the SEC complaint alleged at least $1 billion worth of HEX distributed in the HEX offering (ECF 57, n. 10), an allegation that never became a court finding. See the Turkey entries below.
What about the items reported as seized in Istanbul?
Turkish media and a list attributed to the ministry describe items found at several addresses. The figures differ from outlet to outlet and no court document lists them, so this portal does not repeat them as facts. It also does not use raid photos.
What are the ProveX claims?
ProveX is a zero-knowledge project announced by Heart. Its sacrifice opened on Ethereum on 12 November 2025 (first transaction in block 23,779,976); per his launch post, as quoted by PulseChain Stats, it accepted BTC, ETH, stablecoins and many other coins but excluded PLS, PLSX, INC, HEX and HEX(eth). It ended around 10 January 2026, with about $404–410 M reported by unofficial sources.
Two on-chain analysts claimed in January and February 2026 that much of the sacrifice came through the Tornado Cash mixer from wallets linked to Heart. These are claims. Tornado Cash is built to break the on-chain link between the depositing and the withdrawing address, as its own documentation says, so a transfer out of the mixer does not by itself show who put the money in or who controls it. No authority has made such a claim, and neither Heart nor ProveX has responded on record. The sources of these claims are marked “claim source” rather than given a tier.
The only PRVX address named on provex.com is 0xF6f8Db0aBa00007681F8fAF16A0FDa1c9B030b11 (PRVX), and several copycat “PRVX” tokens exist on PulseChain. Do not trust an address that does not come from an official channel — see Security.
How is this page kept up to date?
Each entry below shows the date it was last checked against its source. When a court, a prosecutor or a ministry publishes something new, the entry is added with its own source and tier. How the community reads these events is on the community page, kept apart from the facts.