DOJ arrests soldier who made $400,000 betting on Maduro's removal

TLDR

• Special operations soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested for allegedly betting $33,933 on Polymarket using classified knowledge of Maduro’s capture, netting $409,000.

Key Takeaways

• Van Dyke placed four bets in December 2025, including a $32,537 position that Maduro would leave office by Jan. 31, yielding a 1,242% profit of $404,222.
• He was photographed on the USS Iwo Jima alongside other service members after Maduro’s capture, placing him directly in the operation.
• Charges include unlawful use of confidential information, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, and wire fraud.
• After noticing reports of suspicious trading, Van Dyke allegedly tried to delete his Polymarket account and change the email on his crypto exchange account.
• Polymarket voluntarily referred the suspicious bets to the DOJ and cooperated with the investigation; a separate Polymarket user made ~$550,000 on bets tied to U.S. strikes on Iran.

Why It Matters

• This is the first DOJ prosecution for insider trading on a prediction market; the Commodities Exchange Act provision barring federal employees from trading on confidential information is the likely statutory vehicle.
• Prosecutors face a practical hurdle: educating a jury on how prediction markets work, a challenge flagged by former federal prosecutor Noah Solowiejczyk of Fenwick & West.
• A parallel Israeli case in February 2026 shows the insider-trading-on-prediction-markets problem is emerging across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously.

Katherine Faulders, Aaron Katersky, Peter Charalambous, Alexander Mallin — ABC News · 2026-04-23 · Read the original