U.S. arrests Army green beret for $400,000 Polymarket bets on Venezuela raid he was in

Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly tried to conceal his bets about the raid on Venezuela that led to Nicolas Maduro's arrest.

What to know:

• A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier was accused in the suspicious Polymarket betting that correctly predicted the U.S. operation against Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro.
• The master sergeant, who was a participant in the raid he allegedly bet on, was arrested and faces several charges, including using confidential government information and fraud.
• In conjunction with the actions from the Department of Justice, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission also pursued a parallel insider trading complaint in federal court.

The U.S. Department of Justice arrested a master sergeant with the Army on allegations he placed wagers on the raid of Nicolas Maduro ahead of participating in the operation to detain former Venezuelan leader.

The DOJ unsealed an indictment Thursday charging Gannon Ken Van Dyke with the unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information and fraud charges, alleging he used his knowledge of the forthcoming raid on Venezuela to place $33,000 in bets, winning about $400,000 after the raid.

"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," U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement. "That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law."

Van Dyke allegedly created a Polymarket account on Dec. 26, 2025 and placed 13 bets through Jan. 2, 2026 on contracts anticipating whether U.S. forces would land in Venezuela, remove Maduro, invade Venezuela and similar contracts.

In tandem with the criminal pursuit, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is pursuing an insider trading complaint in federal court, the agency said in a Thursday statement.

"The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about U.S. operations and yet took action that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of American service members in harm’s way," said CFTC Chairman Mike Selig.

Van Dyke is an active duty soldier with the U.S. Army Special Forces, colloquially known as "green berets," and was based out of Fort Bragg. According to the indictment, he "was involved in the planning and execution" of the military operation to detain Maduro.

After the raid, Van Dyke allegedly withdrew the funds, converted the winnings to a bridged version of USDC, sent them to "a foreign cryptocurrency 'vault'" and then began withdrawing funds and moving them into a brokerage account, the filing said.

The filing noted that the fact someone had made a massive profit on these Polymarket bets had been noticed by news organizations, and it alleged that Van Dyke asked Polymarket to delete his account and changed his email to attempt to conceal his identity.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Polymarket said, "when we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ [and] cooperated with their investigation."

U.S. President Donald Trump, during a press scrum, told reporters that he would look into allegations of federal reporters placing prediction market bets using confidential information, Bloomberg reported.

"The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino," he said. "And you look at at what’s going on all over the world, in Europe and every place they’re doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually."

UPDATE (April 23, 2026, 20:35 UTC): Adds CFTC, Trump comments.

UPDATE (April 23, 2026, 20:45 UTC): Adds Polymarket post, clarifies role of green berets.

More For You

The founder of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX said he might file for a retrial after a decision on his appeal is ruled upon.

What to know:

• Sam Bankman-Fried has withdrawn his request for a new trial, saying he doubts he would receive a fair hearing but may renew the motion after his direct appeal and a reassignment request are decided.
• The FTX founder, serving a 25-year sentence after conviction on seven fraud and conspiracy counts, said...

Aave rallies DeFi partners to contain fallout from $292 million KelpDAO hack

2 hours ago

Inside the $71 million freeze on Arbitrum that has the crypto world questioning what decentralization really means

4 hours ago

The market repriced DeFi in just 48 hours

6 hours ago

Crypto for Advisors: AI Agents Using Crypto

8 hours ago

Tether freezes $344 million in USDT on Tron tied to 'illicit activity'

8 hours ago

JPMorgan says persistent security flaws curb DeFi’s institutional appeal

8 hours ago

The $145 billion math: Why bitcoin’s quantum threat is manageable, not existential

9 hours ago

More than 100 crypto firms urge Senate to move on U.S. market structure bill

12 hours ago

The DAT collapse: Pantera wants Satsuma to dump its bitcoin as shares crash 99%

12 hours ago

U.S. military runs Bitcoin node, sees crypto as power projection versus China

11 hours ago

Bitcoin slips from near $80,000 as oil price increase weighs on risk assets

12 hours ago

More than 90% of Web3 games failed after $15 billion boom as gamers never showed up: Caladan

9 hours ago