I just read something pretty crazy about how Richard Heart managed to get away with the SEC. It turns out that after years of fighting in courts, last April the SEC simply threw in the towel and said it would no longer pursue its fraud case. A court had already dismissed the charges in February, but the SEC’s confirmation was final.

Richard Heart, whose real name is Richard James Schueler, announced the victory on X as if it were the biggest thing to happen to any crypto project. He said that HEX, PulseChain, and PulseX had achieved something that almost no other project has: complete regulatory clarity. According to his version, they completely defeated the U.S. regulators.

But here’s the interesting part: the reason he won wasn’t because the SEC lacked evidence. He won on a jurisdictional technicality. Judge Carol Bagley Amon ruled that since Richard Heart doesn’t live in the United States and his communications about HEX were directed at a global audience, the SEC had no authority to proceed. Basically, she argued that the activities didn’t occur within U.S. territory.

Now, the SEC had accused Richard Heart of using HEX to defraud investors. They presented evidence that he spent over $12 million of the project’s proceeds on luxury items: watches, sports cars, a 555-carat diamond ring. The guy even recorded himself showing Louis Vuitton cases filled with watches supposedly worth 9 million euros. The SEC also pointed out the exaggerated promises of incredible returns that Richard Heart made about HEX.

What most people don’t know is that Richard Heart still has huge problems in Europe. Finlandia is after him for tax evasion and assault on a minor. In 2024, Finnish police issued a warrant for his arrest in absentia after investigations found huge discrepancies between his declared income and what tax authorities estimated. They confiscated millions of euros worth of luxury watches from a house in Espoo. Europol also has him on its wanted list for assaulting a 16-year-old victim.

As for HEX itself, the project is still viewed by many analysts as a Ponzi scheme. The numbers speak for themselves: it promises a 38% annual return, offers incentives for bringing in new users, and Richard Heart controlled around 90% of the tokens. The price briefly surged when the SEC case was dismissed, but looking at the bigger picture, the token is practically dead. As I write this, HEX is trading at $0.002253, and 24-hour trading volumes barely exceed $250,000.

So Richard Heart beat the SEC, but his victory was more due to a legal loophole than being declared innocent. Meanwhile, he faces serious charges in Europe that could change everything. It’s interesting how the global regulatory system works sometimes.