A U.S. Air Force crew chief guides in a F-35A Lightning II following military actions in Venezuela in support of Operation Absolute Resolve on Jan. 3, 2026. (Katelynn Jackson/U.S. Air Force)
A U.S. Army soldier who took part in the raid to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been charged with using classified information to benefit from wagers on the mission’s outcome, according to the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday.
The department alleges Gannon Ken Van Dyke collected more than $400,000 in profits from bets on the prediction marketplace Polymarket.
Van Dyke was indicted on charges of unlawful use of government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful money transaction, according to a Justice Department news release.
Van Dyke was scheduled to appear Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian S. Meyers in the Eastern District of North Carolina. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett in the Southern District of New York, according to the release.
“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton of the Southern District of New York said in the release. “The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the United States Government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that very operation, all to turn a profit.”
The indictment alleges Van Dyke was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and created a Polymarket account on Dec. 26, funded it and began trading on markets related to Maduro and Venezuela, according to the department.
“In total, Van Dyke made approximately 13 bets from Dec. 27, 2025, through the evening of Jan. 26,” the release states.
Those bets all took the “YES” position on U.S. forces in Venezuela by Jan. 31, Maduro out by Jan. 31, and other markets related to the Maduro raid, the department alleges.
“Van Dyke bet a total of approximately $33,034 on those outcomes while in possession of classified nonpublic information about Operation Absolute Resolve,” the release states.
U.S. special forces captured Maduro early on Jan. 3 in Operation Absolute Resolve, then moved him and his wife, Cilia Flores, to New York, where they are being held on charges of narcoterrorism and drug trafficking.
