US Special Forces Soldier Arrested for Polymarket Bets on Maduro Raid

Kate KnibbsMaddy VarnerBusinessApr 23, 2026 7:15 PMUS Special Forces Soldier Arrested for Polymarket Bets on Maduro RaidThe master sergeant allegedly used classified intel to profit on the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, marking the first US arrest for insider trading on a prediction market.Photograph: XNY/Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyThe Department of Justice announced Thursday that it arrested Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an enlisted member of the US Army’s special forces, for allegedly using “classified, nonpublic” information about the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to notch more than $400,000 in profits on Polymarket trades. A grand jury indicted him on five counts, including multiple violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.Van Dyke is the first person to be charged with insider trading on a prediction market in the United States. Lawmakers have been voicing concerns for months about the high likelihood that politicians and public servants could use nonpublic information to profit from trades on leading industry platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, which have exploded in popularity over the past year.The arrest comes just weeks after Department of Justice prosecutors met with Polymarket about potential insider tradition violations. In February, Israeli authorities arrested two citizens, an army reservist and a civilian, for allegedly leaking classified information by making wagers on Polymarket related to military operations. Kalshi, Polymarket’s primary rival in the United States, recently fined three politicians for breaking its insider trading rules, but it did not flag the violations for further enforcement to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that oversees prediction markets.After Van Dyke’s arrest was made public, Polymarket posted a statement to social media noting that it had “identified a user trading on classified government information” and “referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation.” The company declined to comment further.According to court documents, Van Dyke has been an active duty US soldier since September 2008 and rose to the level of master sergeant in 2023. At the time of the alleged trading activity, he was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and assigned to the Army’s Special Operations Command Western Hemisphere Operations.“I have been crystal clear that anyone who engages in fraud, manipulation, or insider trading in any of our markets will face the full force of the law,” CFTC chair Michael Selig said in a statement. “The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about US operations and yet took action that endangered US national security and put the lives of American service members in harm’s way.”The complaint alleges that Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of Maduro’s arrest and that he was aware that he wasn’t authorized to share nonpublic information about US military operations. The complaint says that Van Dyke signed a nondisclosure agreement that forbade him from revealing sensitive or classified government information “by writing, word, conduct, or otherwise.” The complaint also alleges Van Dyke saved a screenshot to his Google account “displaying the results of an artificial intelligence query” outlining how the US Special Forces maintains many classified files including “operational details that are not…

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