RALEIGH, N.C. – A U.S. Army special forces soldier involved with the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is due in court Friday after being charged with using classified information about the mission to win more than $400,000 in an online prediction market.
Federal prosecutors say Gannon Ken Van Dyke used his access to classified information about the operation to capture Maduro in January to win money on the prediction market site Polymarket.
Van Dyke, who was stationed at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina, was charged Thursday with several serious offenses, including unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction. If convicted, he could face years in prison.
At 38 years old, Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of capturing Maduro for about a month. Despite signing nondisclosure agreements promising to keep classified information secret, prosecutors claim he used this information to place bets on the prediction market, specifically on Maduro being out of power by January 31, 2026.
“This involved a U.S. soldier who allegedly took advantage of his position to profit off of a righteous military operation,” said FBI Director Kash Patel in a social media post.
Polymarket, one of the largest prediction markets, alerted the Justice Department after noticing suspicious trading patterns linked to classified government information and cooperated with their investigation.
The significant profits from Van Dyke’s well-timed bets drew public attention shortly after the raid in Venezuela and led to bipartisan calls for stricter regulations on these markets, where individuals can wager on a wide array of events.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, announced it had filed a separate complaint against Van Dyke.
According to CFTC allegations, Van Dyke transferred $35,000 from his personal bank account to a cryptocurrency exchange account on December 26—just over a week before U.S. forces targeted Maduro in Caracas.
He placed a series of bets on when Maduro might be removed from power, with most occurring on January 2, just hours before the first strikes in Caracas.
The outcome of these bets resulted in profits exceeding $404,000, according to the complaint.
“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,” said Michael Selig, chairman of the CFTC.
