The U.S. Division of Justice arrested a grasp sergeant with the Military on allegations he positioned wagers on the raid of Nicolas Maduro forward of taking part within 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 data for private achieve, theft of nonpublic authorities data and fraud expenses, alleging he used his information 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. Lawyer Jay Clayton mentioned in a press release. “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 way of Jan. 2, 2026 on contracts anticipating whether or not U.S. forces would land in Venezuela, take away Maduro, invade Venezuela and related contracts.
In tandem with the prison pursuit, the U.S. Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee is pursuing an insider buying and selling grievance in federal court docket, the company mentioned 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,” mentioned CFTC Chairman Mike Selig.
Van Dyke is an lively responsibility soldier with the U.S. Military Particular Forces, colloquially often known as “green berets,” and was based mostly out of Fort Bragg. In response 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 mentioned.
The submitting famous that the actual fact somebody had made an enormous revenue on these Polymarket bets had been seen by information organizations, and it alleged that Van Dyke requested Polymarket to delete his account and altered his e-mail to try to hide his id.
In a put up on X (previously Twitter), Polymarket mentioned, “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, advised reporters that he would look into allegations of federal reporters inserting prediction market bets utilizing confidential data, Bloomberg reported.
“The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino,” he mentioned. “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): Provides CFTC, Trump feedback.
UPDATE (April 23, 2026, 20:45 UTC): Provides Polymarket put up, clarifies position of inexperienced berets.
