US Army Green Beret Arrested for Allegedly Placing $400,000 in Bets on Venezuela Raid

The US Department of Justice has arrested a high-ranking Army official for allegedly using classified information to place bets on a military operation in Venezuela, which led to the detention of former President Nicolas Maduro. Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a member of the US Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets, has been charged with unlawfully using confidential government information for personal gain, theft of non-public government information, and fraud. According to the indictment, Van Dyke created an account on the betting platform Polymarket and placed 13 bets between December 26, 2025, and January 2, 2026, on the likelihood of US forces landing in Venezuela, removing Maduro, and other related events. He allegedly won around $400,000 from these bets. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is also pursuing an insider trading complaint against Van Dyke. The agency's chairman, Mike Selig, stated that Van Dyke's actions endangered US national security and put the lives of American service members at risk. After the raid, Van Dyke allegedly withdrew his winnings, converted them to a cryptocurrency, and transferred the funds to a brokerage account. The investigation began when news organizations noticed that someone had made significant profits from these bets, and it was discovered that Van Dyke had asked Polymarket to delete his account and had changed his email address in an attempt to conceal his identity. In response to the allegations, US President Donald Trump expressed his disapproval of the use of confidential information for betting purposes, stating that the world has become 'a casino' and that he does not conceptually favor such activities.