{"id":602499,"date":"2026-04-23T23:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602499\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:15:09","slug":"u-s-soldier-charged-with-betting-on-maduro-raid-on-polymarket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602499\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. soldier charged with betting on Maduro raid on Polymarket"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal authorities arrested and charged a U.S. special forces soldier for allegedly making bets on the raid that removed Venezuela’s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from office.<\/p>\n

\"NBC<\/p>\n

Subscribe to read this story ad-free <\/p>\n

Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.<\/p>\n

\"arrow\"<\/p>\n

The soldier was identified as Gannon Ken Van Dyke in a news release announcing the indictment.<\/p>\n

Van Dyke \u201cbet a total of approximately $33,034\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Authorities said he \u201cparticipated in the planning and execution of the U.S. military operation to capture Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn total, Van Dyke made approximately 13 bets from Dec. 27, 2025, through the evening of Jan. 26,\u201d the Justice Department said.<\/p>\n

Van Dyke was criminally charged with \u201cunlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe charges arise from an alleged scheme in which Van Dyke used sensitive classified information to make wagers on Polymarket,\u201d the statement from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said.<\/p>\n

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates Polymarket, said it was also hitting Van Dyke with civil charges.<\/p>\n

The agency said <\/a>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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

“Insider trading has no place on Polymarket,” the company added in a post on X.<\/a> “Today’s arrest is proof the system works.”<\/p>\n

\u201cLast 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know about it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI\u2019ll look into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump added that it was \u201clike Pete Rose betting on his own team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino,\u201d Trump added when asked more generally about betting markets and bets placed on major geopolitical events.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not happy with any of that stuff,\u201d Trump continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible,\u201d said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, \u201cand are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NicolasNicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed Federal agents as they make their way into an armored car en route to a Federal courthouse in Manhattan on Jan. 5, 2026 in New York.XNY \/ Star Max \/ GC Images via Getty Images file<\/p>\n

FBI Director Kash Patel said the indictment \u201cmakes clear no one is above the law, and this FBI will do whatever it takes to defend the homeland and safeguard our nation\u2019s secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n

“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. <\/p>\n

“The same day of the operation,\u00a0Van Dyke\u00a0withdrew\u00a0the majority of\u00a0his allegedly unlawful proceeds from his\u00a0Polymarket\u00a0account,” the DOJ added. <\/p>\n

Federal authorities say that on Jan. 6, three days after the Maudro raid, Van Dyke \u201casked Polymarket to delete his Polymarket account, falsely claiming that he had lost access to the email address.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal authorities arrested and charged a U.S. special forces soldier for allegedly making bets on the raid that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-602499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}