HEX founder Richard Heart suspected of tax evasion in Finland

Richard Schueler, also known as Richard Heart, has been remanded into custody in absentia in Finland. The American founder of the Hex and PulseChain crypto firms is a resident of Helsinki and is suspected there of tax evasion and assault, according to a local report.

In the United States, Heart is facing a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) suit for alleged unregistered securities offerings. Neither US nor Finnish authorities can find him.

Finnish tax authorities join SEC on Heart’s trail

A remand order was issued for Heart on Sept. 13, according to Finnish public broadcaster Yle. Heart is suspected of tax evasion between June 2, 2020, and April 2, 2024, and of assault between Feb. 16 and 17, 2021. No details about the assault charge were provided.

Helsinki police detective Harri Saaristola told Yle that Heart’s income reporting did not match the tax service’s estimates. Saaristola said:

“Based on the very considerable amount of money in question and the long-term and planned nature of the activity, there are grounds to suspect gross tax evasion.”

Heart’s Finnish tax arrears are suspected to amount to “several hundred million euros,” while the government estimated his 2023 income to be 15.2 million euros ($16.9 million), the publication stated. The police investigation was launched at the request of the tax authorities and is continuing in cooperation with international authorities, Saaristola said.

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Controversy from the very beginning

The SEC sued Heart in July 2023 alleging that the three coins his companies issued — Hex (HEX), PulseChain (PLS) and PulseX (PSLX) — are unregistered securities that raised over $1 billion. Some of that money was misused for personal acquisitions such as a 555-carat diamond, expensive watches, and high-end automobiles.

The SEC tried to serve Heart a subpoena in Helsinki, but the third-party Finnish process server was unable to locate him. Heart has managed to maintain a social media presence even while evading Finnish and US authorities. He posts short interviews of himself on his YouTube channel almost daily.

Heart filed a motion to dismiss the SEC suit in April, claiming there was no US-based “entities, employees, contracts, payment accounts, marketing efforts, or travel associated with Mr. Heart.” The SEC retorted in an August filing that Heart targeted US investors and was indeed in the United States at least once in the period under question. The next hearing in the case will be on Oct. 24

HEX has been controversial since its creation in 2019. Heart told Cointelegraph at the time that HEX is “the world’s first blockchain CD [certificate of deposit] that attacks the largest market in the banking ecosystem outside of savings accounts.”

The SEC subpoenaed influencers promoting HEX, PLS and PSLX  in November 2022 as part of a larger investigation. A class action suit is underway against Binance.US and CoinMarketCap for price manipulation involving HEX after an appeals court partially reversed the case’s dismissal in August.

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