The US Special Forces solider accused of making thousands of dollars from betting on a top-secret operation he was involved in has made his first court appearance.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, pocketed $400,000 after placing a $32,000 bet on Polymarket that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be ‘out’ by January, according to prosecutors.
He was seen walking calmly towards federal court in New York on Tuesday, wearing a navy suit over a black shirt and formal pants with large sunglasses.
In the court, Van Dyke pleaded not guilty to using classified government information to place bets on a prediction market for personal gain.
Prosecutors have said that Van Dyke was involved in both the planning and execution of the raid on Maduro’s complex, called Operation Absolute Resolve.
The active-duty service member stationed at Fort Bragg was taken into custody on Thursday and is now facing five charges, which he denies.
Van Dyke is accused of creating the betting account on or around December 26, 2025, funding it, and beginning to trade on Maduro- and Venezuela-related markets.
In total, he allegedly placed about 13 bets between late December and early January, repeatedly backing ‘Yes’ outcomes on scenarios involving US military action in Venezuela and Trump’s invocation of war powers by January 31, 2026.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, the US Special Forces solider accused of making thousands of dollars from betting on a top-secret operation he was involved in, has made his first court appearance
Van Dyke, 38, pocketed $400,000 after placing a $32,000 bet on Polymarket that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be ‘out’ by January, according to prosecutors
In the early hours of January 3 – just days after opening his account – US forces captured Maduro in a covert nighttime raid under heavy fire in Caracas, an operation Van Dyke helped carry out himself.
Maduro was then transported to New York City, where he has pleaded not guilty to federal drug-trafficking charges.
Following the announcement of the operation’s success by President Donald Trump, Polymarket settled multiple related contracts as ‘YES,’ with Van Dyke ultimately earning approximately $409,881.
‘Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly betrayed his fellow soldiers by utilizing classified information for his own financial gain,’ FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle, Jr. said.
‘Van Dyke profited more than $400,000 by trading various outcomes related to Venezuela after learning of the operation because of his role as a US Army soldier,’ he added.
After securing the nearly half-million-dollar payout, the soldier allegedly routed most of the proceeds through a foreign cryptocurrency vault before placing them into a newly established online brokerage account.
On the day of the operation itself, Van Dyke allegedly withdrew most of the illegal gains, according to the indictment.
But the scale of trading linked to Operation Absolute Resolve across social media and the press immediately raised red flags for law enforcement, according to the US Attorney’s Office.
It was at that point, according to the indictment, that Van Dyke allegedly began taking steps to conceal his identity as a trader in the Venezuela-related markets.
The American soldier was seen walking calmly towards federal court in New York on Tuesday, wearing a navy suit over a black shirt and formal pants with large shades
Van Dyke was flanked by his attorneys as he approached the federal court building on Tuesday
Captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is escorted in Manhattan for an initial appearance to face US federal charges including narco-terrorism, conspiracy, drug trafficking, money laundering and others on January 5, 2026
In one example cited by the US Attorney’s Office, Van Dyke allegedly requested that Polymarket delete his account just three days after Maduro’s capture, falsely claiming he had lost access to the email tied to it.
He also allegedly changed the email linked to his cryptocurrency exchange account that same day, replacing it with an address not registered in his name, which he had created on or about December 14, 2025.
In a US Attorney’s Office press release, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Americans in uniform are ‘prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain.’
‘Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible,’ he added.
‘Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.’
Charges against Van Dyke include unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
He could face up to 10 years in prison for each violation of the Commodity Exchange Act, 20 years for wire fraud and 10 years for an illegal monetary transaction.
Trump shared on Truth Social a photo of Nicolas Maduro captured and subdued
Van Dyke, an active-duty service member stationed at Fort Bragg, was taken into custody Thursday and is now facing five charges over his betting activities on Polymarket
In a statement, US Attorney Jay Clayton said: ‘Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain.’
‘The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the US 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,’ he added.
‘That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law.’
Clayton reiterated that those entrusted with protecting the nation’s secrets have a duty to safeguard them, not to use them for personal financial gain, particularly members of the armed services.
‘Our Office will continue to hold accountable those who misuse confidential or classified information in a way that undermines and exploits our national security,’ the statement concluded.
