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A U.S. special forces soldier involved in the military operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was arrested on Thursday after allegedly betting on Maduro’s removal from office before news of the raid was made public, a law enforcement source and a senior military official told CBS News.
Federal investigators believe U.S. Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke made bets of more than $33,000 on the prediction market Polymarket within hours of President Trump’s announcement in January that Maduro had been captured, the source said. The bets hit and resulted in winnings of more than $409,000.
According to an indictment unsealed Thursday in the Southern District of New York, Van Dyke was charged with unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and engaging in monetary transactions from unlawful activity.
In a press release, the Justice Department said that Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of the operation to capture Maduro.
“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said. “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. That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law.”
Van Dyke was a communications specialist supporting Joint Special Operations Command, the unit that oversees Tier 1 special mission units such as the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s SEAL Team Six, multiple officials told CBS News.
The indictment said he has been on active duty since 2008 and has been a master sergeant since 2023, and was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina at the time of the alleged crime. Fort Bragg houses the headquarters of the Joint Special Operations Command.
In the early morning hours of Jan. 3, Mr. Trump announced in a Truth Social post that the Venezuelan president and his wife had been “captured and flown out of the Country.”
Shortly before Mr. Trump’s post, a Polymarket account holder placed a $32,537 bet on the likelihood that Maduro would be “out by January 31, 2026.”
Three additional bets were made via the same Polymarket account: a $1,000 wager on the U.S. invading Venezuela by Jan. 31; a $250 wager that Mr. Trump would invoke the War Powers Act against Venezuela by Jan. 31; and a $146 wager that U.S. forces would land in Venezuela by the end of the month.
Van Dyke allegedly withdrew most of the proceeds from those bets later on Jan. 3, the indictment says. Days later, he allegedly “took steps to conceal his identity,” including by asking Polymarket to delete his account.
Polymarket said in a statement on X: “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,” the company said.
During an unrelated Oval Office event Thursday, Mr. Trump told reporters he hadn’t heard about the alleged betting on Maduro’s removal but would look into it.
“That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team,” the president said, referring to the MLB legend who was banned from the sport for gambling. Mr. Trump has defended Rose, saying last year he would issue a posthumous pardon.
Asked about concerns that prediction markets could play host to insider trading, Mr. Trump said he’s “not happy with any of that stuff.”
“The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino, and you look at what’s going on all over the world, in Europe and every place, they’re doing these betting things,” he said. “I was never much in favor of it. I like it conceptually, but it is what it is.”
While the arrest is a first for U.S. authorities, two Israeli soldiers were charged in connection with the suspected use of classified information to place bets on the prediction platform Polymarket back in February.
In a “60 Minutes” interview last year, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan addressed the issue of users trading on inside information.
“I think that people going and having an edge to the market is a good thing,” he said. “Obviously, you need to curate them and you need to be really clear and stringent on where the line is drawn and … ethics, and we spend a lot of time on that.”
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