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A U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, was arrested and charged on Friday for allegedly using classified information about the Jan. 3 operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to place a prediction market on Polymarket.
He won more than $409,000 on $33,000 in wagers placed before the operation was publicly announced, the Department of Justice (DOJ) stated, in what prosecutors described as the first-ever insider trading case tied to a prediction market in U.S. history.
Van Dyke, 38, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, had been on active duty since 2008 and was made a master sergeant in 2023.
He was supporting Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees Tier 1 units including Delta Force and SEAL Team Six.
He participated in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve and was photographed on the deck of the USS Iwo Jima, the ship Maduro was transported to after his capture, wearing military fatigues and carrying a rifle alongside other service members.
According to the indictment, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account on Dec. 26, 2025, and placed 13 bets between then and Jan. 26.
His largest bet, $32,537 on whether Maduro would be "out of office by January 31," yielded a 1,242% profit of $404,222. Three additional bets covered the United States invading Venezuela, Trump invoking the War Powers Act against Venezuela, and U.S. forces landing in Venezuela.
Total bets: $33,034.
Total winnings: over $409,000.
Van Dyke withdrew the majority of his winnings from Polymarket on Jan. 3, the same day the operation was announced. He then allegedly sent most proceeds to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before depositing them into a newly created online brokerage account.
Days later, he asked Polymarket to delete his account, falsely claiming he had lost access to his email address.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton was blunt.
"Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain. 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," he said.
"That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law," he noted.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said: "Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain."
Van Dyke had signed nondisclosure agreements in which he promised to "never divulge, publish, or reveal by writing, words, conduct, or otherwise any classified or sensitive information" relating to military operations.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) confirmed this was the first time it had used the so-called "Eddie Murphy Rule", Section 746 of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, nicknamed after the film "Trading Places," to bring charges based on the misuse of government information in commodity trading.
The CFTC also filed civil charges seeking restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, and trading bans.
Van Dyke faces:
These would make up a combined maximum of 50 years.
Polymarket said it identified the suspicious trading and referred it to the DOJ.
"When we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ and cooperated with their investigation. Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today's arrest is proof the system works," the company said on X.
Donald Trump Jr. is a partner at 1789 Capital, which made a multi-million dollar investment in Polymarket last year, leading the platform to name him as a company adviser.
Asked about the case in the Oval Office, Trump said he had not heard about it but would look into it, comparing Van Dyke's bet to Pete Rose's betting on his own baseball team.
"The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino," Trump added, saying he was "not happy with any of that stuff."
The arrest comes amid broader concerns about prediction-market integrity.
Earlier in the year, six Polymarket accounts made $1.2 million after betting the United States would attack Iran on Feb. 28, the day the war began.
No arrests have been made in connection with those bets, and there is no evidence linking Trump or White House officials to those trades.
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