Special Forces soldier charged with using classified information to profit off online prediction market released on $250K bond

The Department of Justice charged a senior enlisted soldier assigned to U.S. Army Special Operations Command for allegedly using insider knowledge to bet on the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro via a prediction market site before the raid was made public. 

The DOJ accused 38-year-old Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke — who officials said was involved in the planning and execution for Maduro’s capture by special operations forces in January — of using classified information to place tens of thousands of dollars worth of bets on Polymarket in the days before the mission, according to court records.

Van Dyke allegedly profited nearly $410,000 from his $33,000 in bets, officials said Thursday, then tried to conceal his identity by asking Polymarket to delete his account under the guise of having lost access to the email address associated with the site. He also sent money to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before dumping the funds into a newly made brokerage account, the DOJ said.

Following his arrest on Thursday, Van Dyke was released on a $250,000 bond Friday and was ordered to return to court at the Southern District of New York early next week, according to a DOJ spokesperson and court records.

“Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly betrayed his fellow soldiers by utilizing classified information for his own financial gain,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. in a press release Thursday.

Sites such as Polymarket, known as prediction markets, allow users to place bets on both the mundane and extraordinary aspects of future events and have drawn public and bipartisan ire over allegations of insider trading. 

Oil futures, war, sports and even the weather can all be wagered and have wrought new probes and policies from institutions to quell the opportunity for insiders to use non-public information to win money on future happenings. 

“When we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation,” Polymarket wrote on social media Thursday. “Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today’s arrest is proof the system works.”

Reuters reported Friday that Van Dyke was blocked from creating an account on another prediction market site known as Kalshi. Both markets said they tightened rules last month around wagers using non-public information.

Van Dyke’s alleged wagers, which earned him federal charges for unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction, garnered strong denunciation from top U.S. law enforcement officials. 

“Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law, and this FBI will do whatever it takes to defend the homeland and safeguard our nation’s secrets,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “Any clearance holders thinking of cashing in their access and knowledge for personal gain will be held accountable.”

Van Dyke’s case marks the DOJ’s first public filing over alleged insider trading via prediction markets.

In a statement to DefenseScoop Friday, a USASOC spokesperson confirmed Van Dyke’s rank and that he was an active-duty 18Z, a senior enlisted member of a Special Forces detachment. CBS news reported that Van Dyke’s role was specifically as a communication specialist supporting Joint Special Operations Command, citing multiple unnamed officials. 

“These are all the service record details available currently,” Col. Allie Scott, a spokesperson for USASOC, said in the statement. “This case remains under investigation by the Department of Justice.”

The indictment said Van Dyke had been an active duty soldier since 2008. Stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, he signed a nondisclosure agreement where he promised to “never divulge anything marked as [Sensitive Compartmented Information] or that [he] know[s] to be SCI to anyone,” according to court records.

He signed another NDA in early December, about a month before the raid, regarding Western Hemisphere operations, the DOJ said. Months beforehand, Polymarket posted market offerings about U.S. forces’ operations in Venezuela including dates extending into early 2026.

On Dec. 26, just days before the Maduro raid in which multiple special operators were injured, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account and began placing bets totalling 13 separate wagers, according to the indictment. 

Officials wrote that he was involved in the planning and execution of the raid and “possessed material nonpublic information about the operation at the time of each and every trade he placed in Maduro- and Venezuela-related markets.”

Early on Jan. 3, President Donald Trump announced on social media that Maduro and his wife had been captured. Just before the president’s post, Van Dyke allegedly cast tens of thousands of dollars on a bet that Maduro would be out of office before the end of the month.

The indictment alleges that just hours after the military captured Maduro and transported him to the USS Iwo Jima, a photograph of Van Dyke was taken and uploaded onto his Google account in what appears to be the senior enlisted soldier on the deck of a ship at sea in uniform.

Court records suggest he was appointed a public defender, but did not list the attorney. DefenseScoop could not find contact information for Van Dyke to request comment.

Trump told reporters Thursday that he didn’t know about the allegation against Van Dyke.

After being told by a reporter that the soldier allegedly bet that Maduro would be removed and he was involved in the operation, the president said: “That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team. Now, if he bet against his team that would be no good. But he bet on this own team. I’ll look into it.”

A spokesperson for SDNY told DefenseScoop that Van Dyke’s bail terms include travel restrictions, surrender of his passport, firearms and “destructive devices” unless ordered to use them by the military, no excessive alcohol use, pretrial supervision and appearance at court on Tuesday.

Van Dyke was charged with three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, one count of wire fraud, and one count of unlawful monetary transaction which, taken together, carry maximum sentences of decades in prison.