US Special Forces Soldier Arrested for Polymarket Bets on Maduro Raid

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it had arrested Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a member of the US Army Special Forces, for allegedly using “classified and non-public” information on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to reap more than $400,000 in profits from Polymarket transactions. A grand jury indicted him on five counts, including multiple violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.

Van Dyke is the first person charged with insider trading on a prediction market in the United States. Lawmakers have for months expressed concerns about the high likelihood that politicians and officials could use non-public information to profit from trading on major industry platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, which have exploded in popularity over the past year.

The arrest comes just weeks after Justice Department prosecutors met with Polymarket about potential violations of internal traditions. In February, Israeli authorities arrested two citizens, an army reservist and a civilian, for allegedly disclosing classified information by placing bets on Polymarket related to military operations. Kalshi, Polymarket’s main rival in the United States, recently fined three politicians for violating its insider trading rules, but it failed to report those violations to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that oversees prediction markets, for enforcement.

After Van Dyke’s arrest became public, Polymarket released a statement on social media saying it had “identified a user who was trading on classified government information” and “referred the matter to the DOJ and cooperated with its investigation.” The company declined to comment further.

According to court documents, Van Dyke has been an active duty U.S. soldier since September 2008 and rose to the rank of master sergeant in 2023. At the time of the alleged business activities, he was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina and assigned to the Army Special Operations Command for Western Hemisphere operations.

“I have been very clear that anyone who engages in fraud, manipulation or insider trading in any of our markets will be subject to the full force of the law,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement. “The defendant was entrusted with classified information about U.S. operations and yet took actions that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of U.S. service members at risk.”

The complaint alleges that Van Dyke was involved in planning and executing Maduro’s arrest and knew he was not authorized to share non-public information about U.S. military operations. The complaint says Van Dyke signed a nondisclosure agreement that prohibits him from revealing sensitive or classified government information “in writing, speech, conduct or otherwise.” The complaint also alleges that Van Dyke saved a screenshot to his Google account “displaying the results of an artificial intelligence query” describing how U.S. Special Forces maintains numerous classified files including “operational details that are not publicly available.”

On December 26, Van Dyke allegedly opened an account on Polymarket and withdrew approximately $35,000 from his bank account before transferring it to a cryptocurrency exchange.

The next day, Van Dyke allegedly made his first Venezuela-related trade on Polymarket, putting just under $100 on a “YES” contract that said U.S. forces would be in Venezuela” by Jan. 31, 2026. Prosecutors accuse him of ultimately making 13 Venezuela-related trades on the platform in total, seven of them — totaling hundreds of thousands of shares — on a “YES” contract for “Maduro out of here…the January 31, 2026.” In other words, Van Dyke could have made huge profits if Maduro lost power by the end of the month.