A U.S. special forces soldier has been arrested and charged for allegedly using classified information about a military operation targeting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to profit from prediction market bets, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old master sergeant based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is accused of leveraging his role in the planning and execution of the January 3 raid to place bets on Polymarket, a prediction market platform. According to the indictment, Van Dyke spent over $33,000 on 13 bets related to Venezuela, yielding nearly $410,000 in profits.
Violation of Trust
Van Dyke, who had signed nondisclosure agreements prohibiting the disclosure of classified information, allegedly sent most of his earnings to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before depositing them into a newly created online brokerage account. FBI Assistant Director James Barnacle stated, 'Van Dyke profited more than $400,000 by trading various outcomes related to Venezuela after learning of the operation because of his role as a U.S. Army soldier.'
'The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the United States Government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that very operation, all to turn a profit,' said Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Regulatory Scrutiny
This case marks the first time the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed charges of insider trading tied to event contracts, invoking the 'Eddie Murphy Rule'—a provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that prohibits trading based on stolen or misappropriated government information. Polymarket, the platform used by Van Dyke, cooperated with the investigation and highlighted its enhanced market integrity rules aimed at combating insider trading.
Van Dyke faces charges of wire fraud, unlawful monetary transactions, and violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, with potential combined sentences totaling decades in prison. This case underscores the growing scrutiny of prediction markets and the legal consequences of exploiting classified information for personal gain.