A US soldier has been arrested and charged after he won $400,000 (£300,00) betting on the removal of Venezuela’s former leader Nicolas Maduro.
It is reported that Gannon Ken Van Dyke made the bet on the platform Polymarket before the information was publicly available, winning $409,000 (£303,702).
Now, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged Van Dyke with unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction, according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday.
Van Dyke allegedly placed bets on the timing and outcome of the operation, known as Operation Absolute Resolve, “all to turn a profit”, the justice department said in a statement on Thursday.
“That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law,” justice department officials said.
Van Dyke is an active-duty soldier in the US Army stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
The DOJ has alleged that Van Dyke created a Polymarket account around 26 December 2025 and subsequently started trading on Maduro and markets relating to Venezuela.
He is accused of making bets worth over $33,000 (£24,500) while in possession of classified nonpublic information about Operation Absolute Resolve.
These charges come as an example of insider trading, an issue which has been frantically spoken about on social media in recent months after claims were made that strange patterns had emerged between world events and high-profile people making money off them.
Polymarket described itself as “the world’s largest decentralized prediction market” and is a crypto-powered betting that platform which allows bets to be placed on everything from political outcomes to football matches.
US special forces seized Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores at the start of the year (3 January) during an overnight mission in Caracas which saw the couple brought to New York.
Maduro is facing allegations of weapon and drug offences, which they deny.