{"id":48961,"date":"2026-04-24T09:04:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=48961"},"modified":"2026-04-24T09:04:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:04:53","slug":"us-soldier-charged-with-making-400000-on-maduro-removal-bets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=48961","title":{"rendered":"US soldier charged with making $400,000 on Maduro removal bets"},"content":{"rendered":"
A US\u00a0Army soldier involved in the capture of Nicolas Maduro has been charged with making\u00a0$400,000 \u200cby betting\u00a0on the removal of the ousted Venezuelan leader, the Justice Department said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

In the weeks leading up to\u00a0Maduro’s January 3 capture, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a master sergeant with US\u00a0Army Special Forces, used sensitive classified information to make wagers on prediction market Polymarket that US\u00a0\u200bforces would enter Venezuela and that Maduro would be out of power.<\/p>\n

A grand jury in Manhattan federal court indicted \u200bVan Dyke, 38, on charges of unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft \u2060of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.<\/p>\n

The case appeared to mark the first time \u200bthe department had brought insider trading charges involving a prediction market.<\/p>\n

“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in \u200border to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,\u201d Acting US\u00a0Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Polymarket says it cooperated<\/p>\n

Defense attorney information for Van Dyke was not immediately available. He is expected \u200bto be presented before a judge in North Carolina later on Thursday, the Justice Department said.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon deferred comment to the \u200bJustice Department.<\/p>\n

Asked by reporters about the arrest, President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0said he was not familiar with the case but that it reminded him of Pete \u200cRose, \u2060who was banned from Major League Baseball over a gambling scandal.<\/p>\n

Read:\u00a0US secures $2bn Venezuela oil deal after Maduro capture<\/p>\n

“That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team,” Trump said. “If he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team. I’ll look into it.”<\/p>\n

In a post on X, Polymarket said it had referred the matter to the Justice Department. “Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today’s arrest \u200bis proof the system works,” \u200bthe post read.<\/p>\n

Involved in “planning and execution” of Maduro capture<\/p>\n

The US\u00a0Commodity Futures Trading Commission also brought civil charges against Van Dyke.<\/p>\n

Van Dyke has been an active-duty soldier in the US\u00a0Army since 2008 and had most recently \u200bbeen stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Van Dyke was \u200binvolved in the “planning \u2060and execution” of the Maduro capture, but did not go into detail. The indictment made note of a photograph Van Dyke uploaded to his Google account in the early morning of January 3, hours after the US\u00a0military brought Maduro to the USS Iwo Jima \u2060amphibious assault \u200bship.<\/p>\n

“That photograph depicts Van Dyke on what appears to be the deck of \u200ba ship at sea, at sunrise, wearing US\u00a0military fatigues, and carrying a rifle, standing alongside three other individuals wearing US\u00a0military fatigues,” the indictment read.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A US\u00a0Army soldier involved in the capture of Nicolas Maduro has been charged with making\u00a0$400,000 \u200cby betting\u00a0on the removal of the ousted Venezuelan leader, the Justice Department said on Thursday. In the weeks leading up to\u00a0Maduro’s January 3 capture, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a master sergeant with US\u00a0Army Special Forces, used sensitive classified information to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}