Federal authorities arrested and charged a U.S. special forces soldier who is accused of using classified information about the raid that removed Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro from office to make prediction market bets.
Subscribe to read this story ad-free
Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.
The soldier was identified as Gannon Ken Van Dyke in a news release announcing the indictment.
Van Dyke “bet a total of approximately $33,034” on the Maduro operation on the prediction market platform Polymarket, federal authorities said. He ultimately made more than $409,000 as a result of the bets placed on the U.S. operation, an unsealed indictment alleges.
Authorities said he “participated in the planning and execution of the U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro.”
“In total, Van Dyke made approximately 13 bets from Dec. 27, 2025, through the evening of Jan. 26,” the Justice Department said.
Van Dyke was criminally 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 charges arise from an alleged scheme in which Van Dyke used sensitive classified information to make wagers on Polymarket,” the statement from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said.
Just hours after the U.S. government apprehended Maduro and transported him aboard the USS Iwo Jima, a photograph of Van Dyke was taken and uploaded to his Google account, prosecutors alleged in the indictment.
The image showed Van Dyke on what appeared to be the deck of a ship at sea during sunrise, the indictment stated. In the photograph, he was wearing U.S. military fatigues and carrying a rifle with three other people who were also wearing fatigues, the document said.
The image wasn’t included in the indictment and NBC News has not reviewed it.
An attorney for Van Dyke was not listed on the court docket, and no one answered cell phone numbers listed for him Thursday evening.
Van Dyke’s federal case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett. The court docket does not list his next appearance.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates Polymarket, said it was also hitting Van Dyke with civil charges.
The agency said it “seeks restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.”
In a statement, prediction site Polymarket said, “When we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation.”
“Insider trading has no place on Polymarket,” the company added in a post on X. “Today’s arrest is proof the system works.”
“Last month, we published our enhanced market integrity rules to combat insider trading. When we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation. Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today’s arrest is proof the system works.”
Asked about the arrest during an unrelated event in the Oval Office, which ABC News first reported earlier, President Donald Trump told reporters that he does not like the concept of betting.
“I don’t know about it,” Trump said. “I’ll look into it.”
Trump added that it was “like Pete Rose betting on his own team.”
“The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino,” Trump added when asked more generally about betting markets and bets placed on major geopolitical events.
“I’m not happy with any of that stuff,” Trump continued.
“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible,” said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, “and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said the 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.”
“Following his successful trading relating to Maduro- and Venezuela-related contracts, Van Dyke allegedly sent most of his proceeds to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before depositing them into a newly created online brokerage account,” the Justice Department said.
“The same day of the operation, Van Dyke withdrew the majority of his allegedly unlawful proceeds from his Polymarket account,” the DOJ added.
Federal authorities say that on Jan. 6, three days after the Maudro raid, Van Dyke “asked Polymarket to delete his Polymarket account, falsely claiming that he had lost access to the email address.”
