A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier has been charged with using classified information to win more than $400,000 (€342,480) betting on an online prediction market tied to a January operation that captured former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Authorities say 38-year-old Gannon Ken Van Dyke of Fayetteville, North Carolina, placed roughly 13 wagers on Polymarket predicting U.S. forces would enter Caracas and remove Maduro, relying on sensitive details he learned while participating in planning and carrying out the mission. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Van Dyke “used his access to classified information about that operation to personally profit.”
Prosecutors allege Van Dyke moved most of the winnings into a foreign cryptocurrency account before transferring funds into a newly opened brokerage account.
Van Dyke was indicted in federal court in Manhattan on counts that include unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain and wire fraud. If convicted on all charges, he faces up to 50 years in prison, the Justice Department said.
Polymarket, the prediction market where the bets were placed, said on the social platform X that “insider trading has no place on Polymarket” and that it cooperated with investigators.
Other reported instances of prediction-market bets tied to U.S. national security events include:
– Earlier this year, six Polymarket accounts reportedly made $1.2 million by betting the U.S. would attack Iran on Feb. 28, the day the conflict began; no arrests have been announced in that matter.
– In March, traders who wagered in advance profited after former President Trump described talks with Iran as “very productive,” a comment that helped push oil prices down and stocks up.
– New Polymarket accounts reportedly earned hundreds of thousands of dollars by placing precise bets on a U.S.-Iran ceasefire on April 7, according to the Associated Press.
The White House has warned staff against using nonpublic information to trade on prediction markets. The Justice Department’s indictment highlights concerns about the misuse of classified information for personal financial gain and the legal risks for service members who violate those rules.
Edited by Karl Sexton.