US Authorities Arrest Army Green Beret Over Alleged $400,000 Betting Scandal on Venezuela Raid

The US Department of Justice has taken a Master Sergeant from the Army into custody, charging him with using confidential government information for personal gain and fraud. The allegations stem from his participation in a military operation to apprehend former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, during which he allegedly placed bets worth $33,000 through the platform Polymarket, ultimately winning around $400,000. According to US Attorney Jay Clayton, "The defendant allegedly breached the trust placed in him by the US Government by utilizing classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets, which is a clear case of insider trading and is against federal law." Van Dyke supposedly created a Polymarket account in late December 2025 and made 13 bets between then and early January 2026 on contracts related to the potential US invasion of Venezuela and the removal of Maduro. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is also pursuing an insider trading complaint against Van Dyke, with Chairman Mike Selig stating, "The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about US operations and yet took action that endangered US national security and put the lives of American service members in harm’s way." As an active-duty soldier with the US Army Special Forces, Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of the operation to detain Maduro. After the raid, he allegedly withdrew his winnings, converted them into a stablecoin version of USDC, and then transferred the funds into a brokerage account. The filing indicates that news organizations had noticed the significant profit made from these bets, and Van Dyke attempted to conceal his identity by asking Polymarket to delete his account and changing his email address. In response, Polymarket stated that upon identifying a user trading on classified government information, they referred the matter to the DOJ and cooperated with their investigation. US President Donald Trump expressed his disapproval of the use of confidential information for betting purposes, stating, "The whole world has become somewhat of a casino... I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually."