The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it had arrested Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, for allegedly using “secret, nonpublic” information about the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to make more than $400,000 in profits from transactions at Polymarket. A grand jury indicted him on five counts, including multiple violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.
Van Dyke is the first person to be charged with insider trading in the US forecasting market. Lawmakers have raised concerns for months about the high likelihood that politicians and public officials will be able to exploit non-public information to profit from trades on leading industry platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi, which have gained popularity over the past year.
The arrest came just weeks after Justice Department prosecutors investigated the case met with Polymarket about potential violations of confidential traditions. In February, Israeli authorities arrested two citizens, a military reservist and a civilian, for allegedly revealing classified information by placing bets on military operations on Polymarket. Kalshi, Polymarket’s main rival in the United States, recently fined three politicians for violating insider trading rules but did not report the violations for further enforcement by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that oversees forecast markets.
After Van Dyke’s arrest became public, Polymarket posted a statement on social media noting that it had “identified a user trading on classified government information” and “referred the matter to the Department of Justice and cooperated with the investigation.” The company declined to comment further.
Court documents show Van Dyke has been on dynamic duty since September 2008 and achieved the rank of master sergeant in 2023. At the time of his alleged trading activities, he was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and assigned to the military’s Western Hemisphere Special Operations Command.
“I have made clear that anyone who engages in fraud, manipulation or insider trading in any of our markets will face the full force of the law,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement. “The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about U.S. operations, yet he took actions that threatened U.S. national security and endangered the lives of American soldiers.”
The complaint alleged that Van Dyke was involved in planning and executing Maduro’s arrest and that he was aware that he was not authorized to share nonpublic information about U.S. military operations. The complaint said Van Dyke signed a confidentiality agreement that prohibited him from disclosing sensitive or secret government information “in writing, verbally, by conduct or otherwise.” The complaint also alleges that Van Dyke saved a screenshot to his Google account “showing the results of an artificial intelligence query” showing how U.S. Special Forces maintains multiple classified files, including “operational details that are not publicly available.”
On December 26, Van Dyke allegedly opened an account at Polymarket and withdrew approximately $35,000 from his bank account, then transferred it to the cryptocurrency exchange.
The next day, Van Dyke allegedly made his first Venezuela-related trade on Polymarket, placing a little less than $100 on the “YES” contract, which would put U.S. forces in Venezuela until January 31, 2026. Prosecutors accuse him of ultimately making 13 Venezuela-related trades on the platform, seven of them – totaling hundreds of thousands of shares – under the “YES” contract for “Maduro withdrawn” by… January 31, 2026.” In other words, Van Dyke allegedly stood to make huge profits if the Venezuelan leader were to lose power by the end of the month.