A US special forces soldier has been arrested for allegedly placing a bet on the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, despite being part of the operation.

American soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, is accused of placing a $32,000 bet on Polymarket – one of the best-known prediction markets – that Maduro would be ‘out’ by January, later pocketing $400,000 after the president’s capture. 

But an indictment unsealed on Thursday alleges that he was involved in both the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve, and used his access to classified information to personally profit. 

Van Dyke, an active-duty service member stationed at Fort Bragg, was taken into custody Thursday and is now facing five charges, with an initial court appearance expected in North Carolina. 

‘Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law, and this FBI will do whatever it takes to defend the homeland and safeguard our nation’s secrets,’ FBI Director Kash Patel said.

‘Any clearance holders thinking of cashing in their access and knowledge for personal gain will be held accountable,’ he added. 

According to the indictment, 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. 

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

A US special forces soldier was arrested for allegedly placing a bet on the raid that captured  Maduro, earning him more than $400,000

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. 

Trump shared on Truth Social a photo of Nicolas Maduro captured and subdued 

American soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, is accused of placing a $32,000 bet on Polymarket that Maduro would be ‘out’ by January

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.

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. 

In a statement, FBI Director Kash Patel said: ‘Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law, and this FBI will do whatever it takes to defend the homeland and safeguard our nation’s secrets’

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 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.

During Maduro’s capture, the US used a form of artificial intelligence during the military operation, despite concerns from developers about the risks of deploying the technology. 

The use of Anthropic artificial-intelligence tool Claude highlighted how AI use is gaining traction in the Pentagon.

It is understood that Anthropic was the first AI model developer to be used in classified operations by the US’s Department of Defense following a $200 million with the company last year. 

Van Dyke allegedly placed about 13 bets, repeatedly backing ‘Yes’ outcomes on scenarios involving US military action in Venezuela and Trump’s invocation of war powers by January 31

Following the announcement of the operation’s success by President Donald Trump, Van Dyke allegedly withdrew most of the illegal gains, according to the indictment

However, the developers have refused to comment on whether the software was used in any specific operation.

They have also said Anthropic’s usage guidelines prohibit Claude from being used to facilitate violence, develop weapons or conduct surveillance.

Despite this, the mission to capture Maduro and his wife involved the bombing of several sites across Venezuela’s capital Caracas.

But the companies concerns about how Claude can be used by the Pentagon have pushed administration officials to consider canceling its contract worth millions.

The Chief Executive Dario Amodei has also been publicly grappling with the power of the technology and the risks they could pose to society and he’s called for greater regulation and guardrails to prevent harms from AI. 

Despite this, the adoption of AI by the US military is seen as a key boost for AI companies that are competing for legitimacy and seeking to live up to their enormous valuations from investors.

Other companies such as OpenAI and Google’s Gemini are now used by three million US military personal including a custom version of ChatGPT which will used for analysing documents, generating reports and supporting research.

Just last month, Maduro, 63, returned to court alongside his wife after spending nearly three months locked up at the grim federal prison.

Van Dyke, an active-duty service member stationed at Fort Bragg, was taken into custody Thursday and is now facing five charges

Last month, Maduro, 63, returned to court alongside his wife after spending nearly three months locked up in federal prison 

It marked Maduro and former first lady Cilia Flores’s first appearance before a New York judge since their arraignment, having been held at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after their dramatic arrests in January.

The socialist leader, wearing prison clothing and restrained by leg shackles, looked strikingly thinner in the face as he entered the courtroom. 

He smiled politely and greeted his team in English, telling his lawyer Barry Pollack he looked ‘elegant.’

Meanwhile, his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, appeared to have fully recovered from injuries reportedly sustained during the couple’s capture, no longer wearing bandages or showing visible facial bruising. 

Maduro’s attorneys sought to have his drug trafficking indictment thrown out over a geopolitical dispute over legal fees.

The hearing kicked off with the defense and prosecution arguing over whether Maduro should be allowed to use Venezuelan government funds to pay for his defense. 

The defense has insisted that the US is violating the deposed leader’s constitutional rights by blocking government money from being used for his legal costs.

US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein seemed skeptical of the reasons for denying Maduro and his wife funds from the Venezuelan government to pay for their legal fees. 

March marked Maduro and former first lady Cilia Flores’s first appearance before a New York judge since their arraignment

Maduro’s attorneys sought to have his drug trafficking indictment thrown out over a geopolitical dispute over legal fees

The couple cannot use money from Caracas because they are under sanctions from the US government which have been in place since the second Obama administration.

Despite requests from the defense, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has declined to grant them a waiver to use the funds.

Prosecutor Kyle Wirshba said that the case was ‘unique’ but the sanctions were valid due to national security and foreign policy reasons.

At one point, Maduro’s lawyer claimed the solution was simply to throw out the case. The judge retorted: ‘I’m not going to dismiss the case.’

Judge Hellerstein pointed out that since Maduro had been captured, the US was ‘doing business with Venezuela.’ 

He seemed to suggest that the success of the Trump administration’s operation to remove Maduro and the war in Iran had rendered the sanctions irrelevant.

The judge said: ‘We are doing business with Venezuela. The oil interest in Venezuela has become vital particularly because of the shortages arising from the Strait of Hormuz.

‘The defendant is here. Ms Flores is here. They present no further national security threat. I don’t see that’.