The US Justice Department announced that an American special forces soldier has been arrested and charged for pocketing over $400,000 by betting, on the basis of classified information, on the timing of the Trump administration’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.
Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an active-duty soldier in the US Army who was involved in planning and executing the operation to kidnap Maduro in early January, was charged with “unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction,” the Justice Department said in a Thursday statement.
Van Dyke placed a total of 13 bets worth roughly $33,000 on the prediction platform Polymarket. All of his bets took the “yes” position on questions pertaining to whether US forces would invade Venezuela and remove Maduro before the end of January.
President Donald Trump, who has profited massively from his second term in the White House, told reporters on Thursday that he wasn’t aware of the charges against Van Dyke. The president then asked, “Was he betting that they would get [Maduro] or they wouldn’t get him?”
“That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team,” said Trump, referring to the Major League Baseball player and manager who was banned for gambling on games. “Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good.”
Last year on February 28 Trump posted on his Truth Social social media platform that he planned to issue “a complete PARDON of Pete Rose,” who he said “shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.”
The unsealing of the Van Dyke indictment came amid mounting concerns that insiders at the Trump administration – which experts and watchdogs have deemed the most brazenly corrupt administration in US history – are profiting off nonpublic knowledge.
“This soldier was probably just copying what he’s seeing elsewhere,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.). “The culture of insider trading and corruption starts at the top and is permeating everywhere and everything. This is what people hate about our government now.”
One expert gestured at the absurdity of a soldier who placed bets on the Venezuela operation being arrested – but not those in charge of ordering the operation itself.
“I hear someone was arrested in connection with the patently illegal invasion of Venezuela,” wrote Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group. “Can’t wait to see who is going to be held accountable for this lawless use of military force.”
Suspiciously timed bets on both the Maduro abduction and the US military assault on Iran have sparked alarm about potentially widespread, lucrative insider trading at the Trump administration and among those in the president’s orbit.
Last month, The Financial Times reported that Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth’s broker tried to make a multimillion-dollar investment in weapons stocks in the weeks leading up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran.
“The Iran War has become a corruption racket for the people close to President Trump,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the lead Senate sponsor of legislation that would prohibit “wagering on government actions, terrorism, war, assassination, and events where an individual knows or controls the outcome.”