The Justice Department announced Thursday that it had arrested Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an enlisted member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, for allegedly using “classified and nonpublic” information about the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to reap more than $400,000 in profits from Polymarket professions. A grand jury indicted him on five counts, including multiple violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.
Van Dyke is the first person charged with insider trading on a prediction market in the United States. The legislators were express your concerns for months on the high likelihood that politicians and officials could use non-public information to profit from trading on major industry platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, which have exploded in popularity over the past year.
The arrest comes just weeks after Justice Department prosecutors met Polymarket on potential violations of internal traditions. In February, Israeli authorities arrested two citizens, an Army reservist and a civilian, for allegedly disclosing classified information by placing bets on Polymarket related to military operations. Kalshi, Polymarket’s main rival in the United States, recently fined three politicians for violating its insider trading rules, but it failed to report the violations for further enforcement to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that oversees prediction markets.
After Van Dyke’s arrest became public, Polymarket released a statement on social media saying it had “identified a user who was trading on classified government information” and “referred the matter to the DOJ and cooperated with its investigation.” The company declined to comment further.
According to court documents, Van Dyke has been an active duty U.S. soldier since September 2008 and rose to the rank of master sergeant in 2023. At the time of the alleged business activities, he was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and assigned to the Army’s Special Operations Command for Western Hemisphere Operations.
“I have been very clear that anyone who engages in fraud, manipulation or insider trading in any of our markets will be subject to the full force of the law,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement. “The defendant was entrusted with classified information about U.S. operations and yet took actions that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of U.S. service members at risk.”
The complaint alleges that Van Dyke was involved in planning and executing Maduro’s arrest and knew he was not authorized to share non-public information about U.S. military operations. The complaint says Van Dyke signed a nondisclosure agreement that prohibits him from revealing sensitive or classified government information “in writing, speech, conduct or otherwise.” The complaint also alleges that Van Dyke saved a screenshot to his Google account “displaying the results of an artificial intelligence query” describing how U.S. Special Forces maintains numerous classified files including “operational details that are not publicly available.”
On December 26, Van Dyke allegedly opened an account on Polymarket and withdrew approximately $35,000 from his bank account before transferring it to a cryptocurrency exchange.
The next day, Van Dyke allegedly made his first Venezuela-related trade on Polymarket, putting just under $100 on a “YES” contract that would have U.S. forces in Venezuela by January 31, 2026. Prosecutors accuse him of ultimately making 13 Venezuela-related trades on the platform, including seven – totaling hundreds of thousands of shares – on a “YES” contract for “Maduro out by…January 31 2026”. In other words, Van Dyke could have made a huge profit if the Venezuelan leader lost power by the end of the month.
Prosecutors say that between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET on January 2, just hours before the nighttime mining, Van Dyke made three separate trades in the “Maduro out” contract, totaling more than 250,000 shares.
Although Van Dyke’s exact role in the Maduro operation is unclear, the Justice Department says he uploaded a photo to his Google account shortly after being transported aboard a U.S. Navy ship. “This photograph depicts VAN DYKE on what appears to be the deck of a ship at sea, at sunrise, wearing U.S. military fatigues and carrying a rifle, standing alongside three other individuals wearing U.S. military fatigues,” according to the indictment.
Court documents claim Van Dyke won his “Maduro out” bet when the contract was resolved on Polymarket after the Jan. 3 raid. He reportedly sold his remaining positions the same day and withdrew his funds from the platform. After information began circulating about an anonymous $400,000 payment, according to the indictment, Van Dyke asked Polymarket to delete his account and changed the email address he used for his cryptocurrency account to one that was not associated with his name.
The prediction market industry has recently come under scrutiny for its role in facilitating insider trading, with lawmakers and politicians pushing for increased guardrails and stricter enforcement tactics. California, Illinois and New York have state employees banned to negotiate confidential information in an effort to allay growing concerns about public corruption. In addition to suspicious market transactions linked to Maduro’s capture, a series of Polymarket transactions linked to Iran war markets have also raised concerns on internal activities, including transactions by an account that bet more than $550,000 on whether the United States would strike Iran and whether Ayatollah Khamenei, then the country’s leader, would remain in office.
Some lawmakers have publicly accused the Trump White House of participating in prediction markets using inside information, including U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who said to WIRED that staffers “inside the Situation Room” could push the country into war while betting on it. The White House has denied the allegations. Earlier this month, CNN reported that the White House warned the staff against the use of confidential information to profit from prediction markets. The White House did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment on the warning.
Van Dyke faces a maximum sentence of 60 years if convicted on all counts.
