US Special Forces Soldier Arrested for Betting on Maduro Raid

The Department of Justice announced Thursday the arrest of Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an enlisted U.S. Army special forces soldier, for allegedly using classified, nonpublic information about the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to generate more than $400,000 in profits on the Polymarket prediction platform. A federal grand jury indicted him on five counts, including multiple violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.

Van Dyke becomes the first person in the United States charged with insider trading on a prediction market. For months, lawmakers have warned that politicians and public servants could exploit nonpublic information to profit from trades on popular platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, whose user bases have surged over the past year.

This arrest follows recent meetings between Department of Justice prosecutors and Polymarket regarding potential insider trading violations. In February, Israeli authorities detained two individuals,an army reservist and a civilian,for allegedly leaking classified information through wagers on Polymarket tied to military operations. Meanwhile, Kalshi, Polymarket’s main domestic competitor, recently fined three politicians for breaking its insider trading rules but did not refer those violations to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency overseeing prediction markets.

After Van Dyke’s arrest became public, Polymarket issued a statement on social media acknowledging that it had “identified a user trading on classified government information” and “referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation.” The company declined further comment.

Court documents reveal that Van Dyke has served as an active duty soldier since September 2008 and was promoted to master sergeant in 2023. At the time of the alleged trades, he was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and assigned to the Army’s Special Operations Command Western Hemisphere Operations.

“I have been crystal clear that anyone who engages in fraud, manipulation, or insider trading in any of our markets will face the full force of the law,” CFTC Chair Michael Selig said in a statement. “The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about US operations and yet took action that endangered US national security and put the lives of American service members in harm’s way.”

The complaint alleges that Van Dyke was directly involved in planning and executing Maduro’s arrest and understood he was not authorized to share nonpublic information about U. S. military operations. It notes he signed a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting him from revealing sensitive or classified government information “by writing, word, conduct, or otherwise.” Additionally, the complaint claims Van Dyke saved a screenshot to his Google account showing “the results of an artificial intelligence query” that described how U. S. Special Forces maintain many classified files, including “operational details that are not available to the public.”

On December 26, Van Dyke allegedly opened a Polymarket account and withdrew around $35,000 from his bank account before transferring it to a cryptocurrency exchange. The next day, he reportedly made his first Venezuela-related trade, placing just under $100 on a “YES” contract betting that U. S. forces would be in Venezuela by January 31, 2026. Prosecutors accuse him of ultimately executing 13 Venezuela-related transactions on the platform. Seven of those,totaling hundreds of thousands of shares,targeted a “YES” contract for “Maduro out by … January 31, 2026.” In essence, Van Dyke stood to earn an enormous profit if the Venezuelan leader was removed from power by the end of the month.