The U.S. Department of Justice arrested a grasp sergeant with the Army on allegations he positioned wagers on the raid of Nicolas Maduro forward of collaborating in the operation to detain former Venezuelan chief.
The DOJ unsealed an indictment Thursday charging Gannon Ken Van Dyke with the illegal use of confidential authorities info for private acquire, theft of nonpublic authorities info and fraud costs, alleging he used his data of the forthcoming raid on Venezuela to position $33,000 in bets, profitable about $400,000 after the raid.
“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,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton stated in a statement. “That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law.”
Van Dyke allegedly created a Polymarket account on Dec. 26, 2025 and positioned 13 bets by Jan. 2, 2026 on contracts anticipating whether or not U.S. forces would land in Venezuela, take away Maduro, invade Venezuela and comparable contracts.
In tandem with the felony pursuit, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is pursuing an insider trading complaint in federal court docket, the company stated in a Thursday assertion.
“The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about U.S. operations and yet took action that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of American service members in harm’s way,” stated CFTC Chairman Mike Selig.
Van Dyke is an lively responsibility soldier with the U.S. Army Special Forces, colloquially often called “green berets,” and was primarily based out of Fort Bragg. According to the indictment, he “was involved in the planning and execution” of the navy operation to detain Maduro.
After the raid, Van Dyke allegedly withdrew the funds, transformed the winnings to a bridged model of USDC, despatched them to “a foreign cryptocurrency ‘vault'” after which started withdrawing funds and shifting them right into a brokerage account, the submitting stated.
The submitting famous that the very fact somebody had made an enormous revenue on these Polymarket bets had been seen by news organizations, and it alleged that Van Dyke requested Polymarket to delete his account and altered his e mail to aim to hide his identification.
In a post on X (previously Twitter), Polymarket stated, “when we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ [and] cooperated with their investigation.”
U.S. President Donald Trump, throughout a press scrum, instructed reporters that he would look into allegations of federal reporters putting prediction market bets utilizing confidential info, Bloomberg reported.
“The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino,” he stated. “And you look at at what’s going on all over the world, in Europe and every place they’re doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually.”
UPDATE (April 23, 2026, 20:35 UTC): Adds CFTC, Trump feedback.
UPDATE (April 23, 2026, 20:45 UTC): Adds Polymarket put up, clarifies position of inexperienced berets.
