A U.S. special forces soldier who was part of the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been arrested and charged for allegedly betting on the operation in the prediction market and winning more than $400,000.
Federal investigators said Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke opened an account with Polymarket in December last year, betting around $32,000 that Maduro would not be in office by January. Van Dyke, who had been part of the team that planned the operation to capture Maduro, won the bet and netted $409,000. It’s believed he then sent most of the money to a foreign cryptocurrency vault.
Following Operation Absolute Resolve, reports appeared in the press about unusual Maduro-related contracts on Polymarket. Van Dyke subsequently took steps to delete his Polymarket account, claiming he’d lost the email associated with the account. He also attempted to conceal his cryptocurrency exchange email by registering to an email not his name.
“When we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation,” Polymarket wrote on X today. “Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today’s arrest is proof the system works.”
Van Dyke has been charged with three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, one count of wire fraud, and one count of an unlawful monetary transaction.
“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the United States Government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that very operation, all to turn a profit. That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law. “
When President Trump was asked about Van Dyke’s wager and possible insider trading bets on the Iran conflict, he decried that the whole world “has become somewhat of a casino.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said Van Dyke’s indictment “makes clear no one is above the law, and this FBI will do whatever it takes to defend the homeland and safeguard our nation’s secrets.”
Concerns of insiders betting in prediction markets have become a concern for lawmakers. Polymarket, as well as Kalshi, have both promised to take steps to curtail insider trading. The guardrails they recently introduced led to three congressional candidates being fined recently after making bets on their own campaigns.
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