DOJ arrests soldier who made $400,000 betting on Maduro's removal
Federal authorities arrested a special operations soldier who was involved in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for allegedly pocketing more than $400,000 by betting on his removal from office, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Federal investigators said Gannon Ken Van Dyke bet more than $33,000 on the prediction market Polymarket just days before President Donald Trump announced Maduro's capture.
The series of bets -- which netted more than $409,000 -- immediately prompted scrutiny within the world of prediction markets and resulted in a monthslong investigation about whether inside information was used to place the bets.
Van Dyke was indicted on charges that included unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, and wire fraud.
When, after placing the bets, he saw reports about unusual trading associated with the mission, Van Dyke allegedly tried to hide the evidence of the trades by attempting to delete his Polymarket account and change the email address registered to his cryptocurrency exchange account, according to the indictment.
"Rather than safeguard that information as he was obligated to do, VAN DYKE decided to use that classified information to place trades on a prediction market platform for his personal profit," the indictment said. "VAN DYKE subsequently tried to conceal his unlawful use of classified U.S. Government information by attempting to obscure the source of his unlawful proceeds and to disguise his connection to the accounts linked to the illicit trades."
It was not immediately clear if Van Dyke had legal representation.
Days before President Trump announced that Maduro was captured during "Operation Absolute Resolve," Van Dyke placed a series of bets on Polymarket, including whether Maduro would be removed from office by Jan. 31 and if the U.S. would invade Venezuela, according to officials.
"We're a respected country again like, maybe, like never before," Trump said following the carefully planned overnight operation. "These highly-trained warriors, operating in collaboration with U.S. law enforcement, caught them in a very ready position."
While the indictment does not go into detail about Van Dyke's involvement in the raid, prosecutors noted that he was photographed on the deck of the USS Iwo Jima -- the ship Maduro was moved to following his capture -- wearing military fatigues and holding a rifle alongside other service members.
According to Polymarket, a trader who created an account in Dec. 2025 bet $33,933 across four predictions related to the U.S. invasion of Venezuela and the capture of Maduro. The largest position -- a $32,537 bet that Maduro would be out of office by Jan. 31 -- resulted in a 1,242% profit of $404,222.
A Polymarket spokesperson said the company referred the suspicious bets to the Department of Justice and cooperated with the investigation, according to a statement posted to X.
"Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today's arrest is proof the system works," the statement said.
The arrest and indictment are believed to be the first instance of the Department of Justice prosecuting a case of insider trading on a prediction market. Polymarket, the world's largest prediction platform, allows traders to anonymously bet on future events using event contracts based on yes or no questions.
While prediction markets are primarily regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, suspiciously-timed trades on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have sparked concerns about insider trading. In addition to the $400,000 Maduro bet, another Polymarket user made roughly $550,000 through a series of bets related to the U.S. striking Iran and the removal of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Asked on Thursday what he thought about about Van Dyke's wagers, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, "That's like Pete Rose betting on his own team."
"Pete Rose, they kept him out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team. Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team," Trump said. "I'll look into it."
Regarding concerns about federal employees making insider trading bets on the Iran conflict and other developments, Trump said "the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino."
"You look 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, but it is what it is. No, I think that I'm not happy with any of that stuff. But they have all these different sites. They have predictive markets. It's a crazy world. It's a much different world than it was."
In an interview in early March, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton confirmed that prosecutors in his office were actively looking at ways to potentially prosecute individuals who seek to game the system through manipulating prediction markets.
"My prosecutors are busy looking at what laws we can use that are like insider trading laws," Clayton said on CNBC.
While prediction markets are relatively new, prosecutors may be able to apply a decades-old statute to bring an insider trading case, according to Noah Solowiejczyk, a partner at law firm Fenwick & West and former federal prosecutor in Manhattan.
"The Commodities Exchange Act deals with a situation like this," said Solowiejczyk, who as a prosecutor charged the first-ever cryptocurrency insider trading case. "There's a particular provision ... that actually prohibits employees or agents of the federal government from trading on confidential government information that they learn."
However, Solowiejczyk noted that prosecutors may need to plan for a "learning curve" for a potential jury to understand how prediction markets work.
"A major undertaking for the government would be distilling and simplifying what happened so that the jury can understand it," he said. "That's often one of the challenges for the government in these cases that involve new technology that jurors may not be familiar with."
While Thursday's arrest marks a first for U.S. authorities, the prosecution is not unprecedented globally. In February, an Israeli army reservist and civilian were charged in Israel in connection with using classified information to place bets on Polymarket.
