Gannon Ken Van Dyke has been identified as the US Special Forces soldier who made a Polymarket bet on the removal of Venezuela president Nicolas Maduro, while being part of the operation to capture him and his wife.
Troops, at the direction of President Donald Trump, had captured Maduro and his wife on January 3, 2026, flying them back to the US to face indictment. Van Dyke was arrested and charged by federal authorities for betting a total of around $33,034 on the Maduro operation, they said in a press release. As a result of the operation, the soldier ended up making over $409,000.
Authorities noted that Van Dyke “participated in the planning and execution of the U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro.” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said “The charges arise from an alleged scheme in which Van Dyke used sensitive classified information to make wagers on Polymarket.”
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Here’s all you need to know about Gannon Ken Van Dyke, the US Special Forces soldier arrested for the Polymarket bet.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke: 5 things to know
- Van Dyke, 38, is from Fayetteville, North Carolina.
- He has been an active-duty soldier in the US Army, and was stationed at Fort Bragg, a military base located in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
- Van Dyke allegedly created his Polymarket account on or about December 26, 2025. Then he funded it and began to trade on Maduro and Venezuela-linked markets.
- The soldier reportedly made around 13 bets from December 27, 2025, through the evening of January 2, 2026. The DOJ noted all these bets took the ‘yes’ position on “U.S. Forces in Venezuela . . . by January 31, 2026”; “Maduro out by . . . January 31, 2026”; “Will the U.S. invade Venezuela by . . . January 31,”; or “Trump invokes War Powers against Venezuela by . . . January 31.”
- Van Dyke has been charged with three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; one count of wire fraud. Each of these charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail. He has also been charged with one count of an unlawful monetary transaction – which has a maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars.
How Van Dyke carried out the bet?
Van Dyke allegedly sent most of his proceeds to a foreign cryptocurrency vault and then deposited them into a newly created online brokerage account. On the day of the Maduro operation, Van Dyke withdrew the majority of his allegedly unlawful proceeds from his Polymarket account.
When the Maduro operation was announced, reports of unusual trading on Polymarket emerged, at which time Van Dyke took steps to conceal his identity, as per the DOJ.
On or about January 6, Van Dyke asked Polymarket to delete his account with them, falsely claiming that he had lost access to the email address with which the account was associated. He changed the email registered to the cryptocurrency exchange account the same day, going with an id that was not subscribed to his name. He had created the same on or about December 14, 2025.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche commented on the matter, saying “Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain. Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.”
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