The U.S. Justice Department has arrested an Army sergeant major, accusing him of staging a raid on Nicolás Maduro before participating in an operation to detain former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment on Thursday charging Gannon Ken Van Dyke with illegal use of classified government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information and fraud charges alleging that he used his knowledge of an upcoming raid in Venezuela to place a $33,000 bet and win about $400,000 after the raid.
“The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the U.S. government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that operation, all for the purpose of profiting,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement. “This was clearly insider trading and is illegal under federal law.”
Van Dyke allegedly created a Polymarket account on December 26, 2025, and placed 13 bets through January 2, 2026 on contracts that predicted whether U.S. troops would land in Venezuela, overthrow Maduro, invade Venezuela and similar contracts.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a statement Thursday that the agency is pursuing insider trading complaints in federal court in conjunction with its criminal pursuit.
“The defendants were entrusted with confidential information about U.S. business but took actions that endangered U.S. national security and endangered the lives of U.S. service members,” said CFTC Chairman Mike Selig.
Van Dyke is an active duty soldier in the U.S. Army Special Forces, commonly known as a “Green Beret” and is stationed at Fort Bragg. According to the indictment, he “participated in the planning and execution” of the military operation to detain Maduro.
After the attack, Van Dyke allegedly withdrew the funds, converted the winnings into a bridged version of USDC, sent it to a “foreign cryptocurrency ‘vault,'” and then began withdrawing the funds and transferring them to brokerage accounts, the documents say.
The document states that the news organization became aware of someone making huge profits from these Polymarket bets, and alleges that Van Dyke asked Polymarket to delete his account and change his email in an attempt to hide his identity.
“When we discovered a user was trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the Department of Justice,” Polymarket said in a post on X, formerly Twitter [and] Cooperate with their investigation. “
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at a press conference that he would investigate allegations that federal journalists used confidential information to make prediction market bets, Bloomberg reported.
“Unfortunately, the whole world has become a casino,” he said. “You look at what’s going on around the world, in Europe, everywhere they’re doing these gambling things. I’ve never been a big fan of it. I don’t like it conceptually.”
Update (April 23, 2026 20:35 UTC): Trump commented, the CFTC added.
Update (April 23, 2026 20:45 UTC): Added Polymarket post clarifying the role of Green Berets.