US Authorities Arrest Army Green Beret Over Alleged Insider Trading on Venezuela Raid

The US Department of Justice has taken a master sergeant from the Army into custody, accusing him of misusing confidential government information for personal financial gain. The allegations stem from his involvement in a military operation aimed at detaining former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. According to the indictment, Gannon Ken Van Dyke used his knowledge of the impending raid to place bets worth $33,000 on Polymarket, ultimately winning around $400,000. US Attorney Jay Clayton condemned Van Dyke's actions, stating that they constitute clear insider trading and are illegal under federal law. The accused created a Polymarket account in late December 2025 and made multiple bets on the likelihood of US forces landing in Venezuela, removing Maduro, and similar scenarios. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is also pursuing an insider trading complaint against Van Dyke. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig emphasized that Van Dyke's actions endangered US national security and put American service members' lives at risk. As an active-duty soldier with the US Army Special Forces, Van Dyke was involved in planning and executing the operation to detain Maduro. Following the raid, he allegedly withdrew his winnings, converted them to a stablecoin, and transferred the funds to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before moving them to a brokerage account. The filing notes that news organizations had taken notice of the significant profit made from these bets, prompting Van Dyke to attempt to conceal his identity by asking Polymarket to delete his account and changing his email address. Polymarket has since stated that it identified the user trading on classified government information and referred the matter to the DOJ, cooperating with their investigation. US President Donald Trump has also weighed in on the issue, expressing his disapproval of the concept of prediction market bets using confidential information.