A U.S. Army master sergeant who helped plan and carry out the January raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was charged Thursday with using classified information about the mission to win roughly $409,881 on the prediction market Polymarket, federal prosecutors said.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, was released Friday on a $250,000 unsecured bond after an initial appearance in Raleigh and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
The indictment, unsealed in the Southern District of New York, charges Van Dyke with unlawful use of confidential government information, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and an unlawful monetary transaction.
The wire fraud count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years; the others carry a maximum of 10 years each. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett.
According to the indictment, Van Dyke was read into Operation Absolute Resolve on or about Dec. 8, 2025, and signed nondisclosure agreements covering classified or sensitive military information.
On Dec. 26, prosecutors say, he opened a Polymarket account.
Between Dec. 27 and the evening of Jan. 2, he placed about 13 "YES" wagers totaling roughly $33,034 on contracts tied to Maduro's removal, U.S. forces entering Venezuela, a U.S. invasion, and Trump invoking war powers, all keyed to a Jan. 31 deadline.
In the predawn hours of Jan. 3, U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at a residence in Caracas.
President Donald Trump announced the operation hours later, Polymarket resolved the relevant contracts "YES," and Van Dyke withdrew most of his proceeds the same day, prosecutors say.
He allegedly routed the bulk of the winnings to a foreign cryptocurrency vault, then to a newly opened brokerage account. On Jan. 6, he asked Polymarket to delete his account, falsely claiming he had lost access to the registered email, and switched the address on his crypto exchange to one created in mid-December under a name that was not his.
Van Dyke, on active duty since 2008, has built a parallel real estate business around Fayetteville, with public records linking him or entities he controls to at least eight homes, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In Facebook and text exchanges last year with a South Carolina woman, the Journal reported, Van Dyke described flipping houses, said he planned to leave the military soon, and wrote that he was "working on launching a tech consulting firm."
He referenced taking part in something "all over the news a couple months ago" and meeting the president, calling it "the sketchiest thing I have ever had to do," according to the Journal.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a parallel civil complaint seeking restitution, disgorgement, civil penalties, and trading and registration bans.
Asked Thursday about the case, Trump compared it to "Pete Rose betting on his own team" and said the world "has become somewhat of a casino."
CBS News described the arrest as a first for U.S. authorities pursuing alleged insider trading on a prediction market, while two Israeli soldiers faced similar charges abroad in February.
Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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