Unveiled: US Special Forces Soldier Exploits Secret Intel for $400K Maduro Raid – Faces Charges

On Friday, a member of the U.S. special forces received bond after being accused of exploiting classified details about a mission targeting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to secure over $400,000 on the prediction platform Polymarket, according to a federal magistrate.

The magistrate in North Carolina who approved Gannon Ken Van Dyke’s release directed him to appear at a federal courthouse in New York by Tuesday for further proceedings on the case.

Sporting a beard and arm tattoos, Van Dyke remained mostly silent during the nearly hour-long session, where he was assigned a federal public defender who chose not to comment afterward. The bond, set at $250,000, was unsecured, meaning Van Dyke didn’t have to provide any upfront payment.

Prosecutors allege Van Dyke leveraged classified insights from the January operation to capture Maduro to profit on Polymarket. This platform allows users to place trades on a wide range of topics—from sports events like the Super Bowl to political elections and reality show outcomes.

Stationed at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina, Van Dyke faces charges for the unauthorized use of confidential U.S. government information for personal profit, theft of nonpublic information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and conducting an illegal monetary transaction.

If convicted, Van Dyke could face up to 10 years for each of four charges, and up to 20 years for a fifth charge, as stated by officials on Friday. Attempts to reach Van Dyke by phone were unsuccessful, as his publicly listed number is not active.

Van Dyke, 38, was involved for about a month in the planning and execution of capturing Maduro, according to the New York federal prosecutor’s office. He signed nondisclosure agreements promising to not divulge “any classified or sensitive information” related to the operations, but prosecutors say he used what he knew to make a series of bets related to Maduro being out of power by Jan. 31.

“This involved a U.S. soldier who allegedly took advantage of his position to profit off of a righteous military operation,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post.

Polymarket, one of the largest prediction markets, said it found someone trading on classified government information, alerted the Justice Department and “cooperated with their investigation.”

Massive profits from well-timed bets aroused public attention days after the raid in Venezuela and brought bipartisan calls for stricter regulation of the markets.

The sudden rise of these markets has led to growing scrutiny by Congress and state governments. Some lawmakers alarmed by highly specific, well-timed trades on the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran and wagers on President Donald Trump’s next moves have pushed for guardrails against insider trading.

The Trump administration has been supportive of the industry’s expansion. The president’s eldest son is an adviser for both Polymarket and its main competitor, Kalshi,, and is a Polymarket investor. Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, is launching its own prediction market called Truth Predict.

Van Dyke moved into a home in Fayetteville just weeks ago, said Larry Duncan, one of his new neighbors.

“I introduced myself. I asked if he needed any assistance,” said Duncan, who once served in the Marines. “I said, ‘You look like special forces.’ He just smiled. I worked on a contract at Fort Bragg. I know how those people carry themselves. He was tatted up, quiet, kind of secretive.”

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, announced Thursday that it had filed a parallel complaint against Van Dyke.

That complaint alleges that Van Dyke moved $35,000 from his personal bank account into a cryptocurrency exchange account on Dec. 26 — a little over a week before U.S. forces flew into Caracas and seized Maduro.

Van Dyke made a series of bets on when Maduro might be removed from power, according to the complaint. He placed those bets between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2, with the vast majority occurring the night of Jan. 2 — just hours before the first missiles struck Caracas.

The bets resulted in “more than $404,000 of profits,” the complaint says.

“The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about U.S. operations and yet took action that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of American service members in harm’s way,” said Michael Selig, the commission’s chairman.