An active-duty U.S. Army special forces soldier has been arrested and charged by the Department of Justice for illegally trading on classified information about the military operation that captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, turning confidential mission details into hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal profits, federal officials announced Thursday.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a soldier stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, used nonpublic classified information about Operation Absolute Resolve — the codename for the night-time raid that seized Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from their Caracas compound on January 3 — to place targeted bets on Polymarket, a cryptocurrency-based prediction platform, according to the unsealed indictment. Prosecutors allege that Van Dyke, who was involved in the planning and execution of the operation between December 2025 and January 2026, gained authorized access to highly sensitive mission details including the operation’s timing and expected outcome.
In late December 2025, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account and invested more than $33,000 across Venezuela and Maduro-related prediction markets, all with the explicit goal of personal financial gain, the DOJ said. When the operation concluded as planned, Van Dyke walked away with more than $409,000 in winnings from his insider trades.
Polymarket officials confirmed Thursday that after the platform detected suspicious activity tied to classified government information, it immediately referred the case to the Department of Justice and fully cooperated with the ongoing investigation. “Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today’s arrest is proof the system works,” the company said in a social media statement.
Van Dyke faces five separate federal charges: unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction. As a member of the U.S. military granted access to classified information, Van Dyke had previously signed binding non-disclosure agreements promising he would never reveal or misuse any classified or sensitive operational information for any unauthorized purpose, DOJ officials noted.
“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,” said acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.”
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York — the judicial district where the case will be tried — echoed that sentiment, emphasizing that prediction markets do not qualify as safe havens for actors looking to profit from misappropriated confidential or classified information. The independent U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission also filed a separate civil complaint against Van Dyke on Thursday, bringing additional insider trading allegations against him.
The raid that captured Maduro transferred the former Venezuelan leader and his wife to New York, where they face ongoing charges of weapons trafficking and drug trafficking, allegations the pair have repeatedly denied.
During a press briefing on an unrelated matter Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters he had not yet been briefed on the allegations against Van Dyke but would review the case. When asked about growing concerns that unregulated prediction markets create openings for widespread insider trading involving sensitive government information, Trump said he disapproved of the practice. “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 favour of it.”