US soldier indicted on five federal charges for profiting millions on Polymarket by betting on classified "Maduro arrest" intelligence

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An active-duty U.S. Army soldier stationed at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, has been charged with using classified intelligence to bet on Polymarket while participating in a secret military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Federal prosecutors have indicted him on five counts, including commodities fraud and wire fraud. (Context: Khamenei's death tests the bottom line of prediction markets: Kalshi decides to refund, "don't profit from the dead," while Polymarket faces reports of million-dollar insider trading.) (Background: The Trump administration supports Polymarket and Kalshi! The U.S. Department of Justice and CFTC sue three states including Arizona, sparking a jurisdictional war over prediction markets.) $33,000 in principal turned into $409,000 in 12 days! Behind this staggering return is an active-duty U.S. Army soldier who used top-secret military intelligence to bet on "Maduro will fall" on the prediction market platform Polymarket. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel recently announced the unsealing of an indictment against 38-year-old U.S. Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke. The indictment charges Van Dyke with five counts: illegal use of classified government information for profit, theft of non-public government intelligence, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and illegal monetary transactions, carrying a maximum sentence of 60 years. Van Dyke, an active-duty soldier stationed at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, had signed a non-disclosure agreement promising never to leak classified information. The indictment alleges that between December 8, 2025, and January 6, 2026, he possessed classified information regarding "Operation Absolute Resolve" (a military operation executed by U.S. Special Forces to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro). On December 26, 2025, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account and began trading. From December 27 to January 2, 2026, he placed approximately 13 bets, all wagering "YES" on outcomes related to Venezuela and Maduro, with a total stake of approximately $33,034. In the early hours of January 3, 2026, U.S. Special Forces arrested Maduro and his wife in Caracas. Hours later, the U.S. President publicly announced the success of the operation. Polymarket immediately settled multiple contracts as "YES," including "Maduro to step down before January 31, 2026" and "U.S. military to enter Venezuela before January 31, 2026." Van Dyke profited approximately $409,881. (Further reading: Trump captures Maduro: $50 million "ransom," CIA mole embedded for six months, safe house drill replicated.) After pocketing the profits, Van Dyke quickly took a series of cover-up actions: transferring most of the proceeds to an offshore cryptocurrency vault, then depositing them into a newly opened online brokerage account, and withdrawing most of the funds on the same day. At this time, reports of abnormal Polymarket trading began to appear in the media and on social platforms. On January 6, Van Dyke applied to Polymarket to delete his account, lying that he could not access his email; on the same day, he changed the email address of his cryptocurrency exchange account to one created on December 14, 2025. The five charges against Van Dyke include: three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act (up to 10 years each), one count of wire fraud (up to 20 years), and one count of illegal monetary transactions (up to 10 years). U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton stated: "Prediction markets are not a sanctuary for profiting from the misappropriation of classified or confidential information. The defendant allegedly betrayed the trust placed in him, using sensitive military intelligence to bet on the timing and outcome of a military operation. This is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law." FBI Director Kash Patel also issued a warning, emphasizing that any personnel with security clearances "who think they can profit from the intelligence access granted by their position will be held accountable." The case was investigated by the FBI with assistance from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and Polymarket's parent company, Blockratize, was officially thanked for its cooperation. This case is the first known federal indictment for insider trading in a prediction market using military intelligence, marking the formal inclusion of prediction market contracts into the financial crime framework by U.S. regulators. This indictment, involving national security, will further test whether the compliance and identity verification mechanisms of decentralized prediction platforms are sufficient to prevent systemic abuse.

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