Richard Heart allegedly funnels $500M in ETH through Tornado Cash

At current prices, those 147,478 ETH are worth over $500 million.

Heart — real last name Schueler — tweeted a “thought experiment” yesterday about paying taxes — interesting, considering that Finnish law enforcement have an active criminal notice on Europe’s Most Wanted Fugitives list regarding alleged tax evasion.

Whether he’s late on any tax payments is unclear from the public record amid this ongoing investigation, and it’s important to note that any allegations about on-chain transfers are difficult to verify without enrolling a team of forensic blockchain experts.

For context, in their original lawsuit against Heart which was dismissed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), commissioners alleged that Heart is an experienced coin mixer.

Richard Heart was familiar with Tornado Cash

“It appears as if Heart transferred, or directed the transfer of, $26 million in ETH through a crypto asset mixer and then through at least 50 intermediary wallets,” wrote commissioners in their July 2023 lawsuit.

Indeed, Heart admitted to being familiar with digital asset mixers in a December 2, 2019 YouTube video.

Commissioners also alleged that over 94% of 2.3 million ETH transactions across 11 months “were recycling transactions directed by Heart or other insiders, which enabled Heart or other insiders to gain control of a large number of Hex tokens, while creating the false impression of significant trading volume and organic demand for Hex.”

Because Heart is familiar with coin mixers like Tornado Cash and commissioners have alleged his extensive use of coin mixing services, blockchain users have flagged wallets that they suspect he controls.

They use platforms like Arkham to create custom entities and tags using information compiled by the SEC, other researchers, and the community of “Hexicans” who supplement Heart’s work on HEX, Pulsechain, and PulseX.