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

The US Department of Justice has taken a master sergeant from the Army into custody, charging him with unlawfully utilizing classified government information for personal financial gain, theft of non-public government data, and fraud. The charges stem from his alleged involvement in placing wagers totaling $33,000 on the outcome of a raid in Venezuela, which ultimately yielded winnings of approximately $400,000. According to US Attorney Jay Clayton, 'the defendant allegedly breached the trust placed in him by the US government by leveraging sensitive military operation information for personal profit, which is a clear case of insider trading and a federal offense.' The accused, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, created an account on Polymarket on December 26, 2025, and proceeded to place 13 bets between then and January 2, 2026, on contracts related to the potential US invasion of Venezuela and the removal of Nicolas Maduro. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is also pursuing an insider trading complaint against Van Dyke in federal court, with Chairman Mike Selig stating that 'the defendant's actions jeopardized US national security and put the lives of American service members at risk.' Van Dyke, an active-duty soldier with the US Army Special Forces, was involved in the planning and execution of the operation to apprehend Maduro. Following the raid, he allegedly withdrew his winnings, converted them to a bridged version of USDC, and transferred the funds to a foreign cryptocurrency 'vault' before moving them into a brokerage account. The investigation revealed that Van Dyke attempted to conceal his identity by requesting that Polymarket delete his account and changing his email address. 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 it's not something I'm in favor of.'