The Division of Justice introduced Thursday that it arrested Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an enlisted member of the US Military’s particular forces, for allegedly utilizing “categorized, nonpublic” details about the seize of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to notch greater than $400,000 in income on Polymarket trades. A grand jury indicted him on 5 counts, together with a number of violations of the Commodity Alternate Act.
Van Dyke is the primary particular person to be charged with insider buying and selling on a prediction market in the USA. Lawmakers have been voicing concerns for months concerning the excessive chance that politicians and public servants may use nonpublic info to revenue from trades on main business platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, which have exploded in reputation over the previous yr.
The arrest comes simply weeks after Division of Justice prosecutors met with Polymarket about potential insider custom violations. In February, Israeli authorities arrested two residents, a military reservist and a civilian, for allegedly leaking categorized info by making wagers on Polymarket associated to navy operations. Kalshi, Polymarket’s main rival in the USA, just lately fined three politicians for breaking its insider buying and selling guidelines, but it surely didn’t flag the violations for additional enforcement to the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC), the federal company that oversees prediction markets.
After Van Dyke’s arrest was made public, Polymarket posted an announcement to social media noting that it had “recognized a consumer buying and selling on categorized authorities info” and “referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation.” The corporate declined to remark additional.
In accordance with court docket paperwork, Van Dyke has been an energetic responsibility US soldier since September 2008 and rose to the extent of grasp sergeant in 2023. On the time of the alleged buying and selling exercise, he was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and assigned to the Military’s Particular Operations Command Western Hemisphere Operations.
“I’ve been crystal clear that anybody who engages in fraud, manipulation, or insider buying and selling in any of our markets will face the complete power of the legislation,” CFTC chair Michael Selig mentioned in an announcement. “The defendant was entrusted with confidential details about US operations and but took motion that endangered US nationwide safety and put the lives of American service members in hurt’s means.”
The criticism alleges that Van Dyke was concerned within the planning and execution of Maduro’s arrest and that he was conscious that he wasn’t licensed to share nonpublic details about US navy operations. The criticism says that Van Dyke signed a nondisclosure settlement that forbade him from revealing delicate or categorized authorities info “by writing, phrase, conduct, or in any other case.” The criticism additionally alleges Van Dyke saved a screenshot to his Google account “displaying the outcomes of a synthetic intelligence question” outlining how the US Particular Forces maintains many categorized recordsdata together with “operational particulars that aren’t out there to the general public.”
On December 26, Van Dyke allegedly opened an account on Polymarket and took out round $35,000 from his checking account earlier than transferring it to a cryptocurrency change.
The next day, Van Dyke allegedly made his first Venezuela-related commerce on Polymarket, placing rather less than $100 on a “YES” contract that US forces could be in Venezuela by January 31, 2026. Prosecutors accuse him of finally making 13 Venezuela-related transactions on the platform, seven of these—totaling a whole bunch of hundreds of shares—on a “YES” contract for “Maduro out by … January 31, 2026.” In different phrases, Van Dyke allegedly stood to make an unlimited revenue if the Venezuelan chief wound up out of energy by the top of the month.
