Federal authorities have arrested a US soldier who was involved in a special military operation to capture Nicolas Maduro after winning a bet on ousting the Venezuelan president.
According to the Justice Department, US Special Forces soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly made more than $400,000 betting on Maduro.
Additionally, he reportedly bet more than $33,000 and traded on Polymarket, a prediction market and crypto-powered platform based on classified information.
In a high-stakes game on Polymarket, a trader who joined the platform in December 2025 turned a series of geopolitical gambles into a massive windfall.
Users wagered a total of $33,933 in four bets revolving around a possible US invasion of Venezuela and the removal of President Nicolas Maduro from power.
That single position paid off spectacularly, yielding a 1,242 percent return and a total profit of $404,222.
As a result of the misuse of classified information on a trading platform, Gannon Ken Van Dyke was indicted by the DOJ on various charges including unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, commodity fraud, wire fraud, and theft of non-public government information.
Justice Department officials said, “This is clearly insider trading and illegal under federal law.”
“Instead of protecting that information, as he was obligated to do, Van Dyke decided to use that classified information to trade on the prediction market platform for his personal gain,” the indictment says.
As American soldiers staked out missions, information began to trickle in about unusual trading.
To avoid any scam, Van Dyke tried to erase the evidence by deleting the Polymarket account and changing the email address registered to his cryptocurrency exchange account.
Earlier in January this year, US President Donald Trump launched “Operation Absolute Resolve”, a high-level military operation to capture Maduro and his wife and bring them to New York to face arms crimes and drug trafficking charges.
