RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A U.S. special forces soldier was granted bond Friday on charges that he used classified information about the mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to win more than $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket, a federal magistrate said Friday.
The magistrate in North Carolina who authorized Gannon Ken Van Dyke’s release told him to report to a New York federal courthouse by Tuesday to continue his case there.
Bearded with arm tattoos, Van Dyke said little during the nearly hourlong hearing, during which he was appointed a federal public defender who declined to comment afterward. The $250,000 unsecured bond did not require Van Dyke to put up any money.
Federal prosecutors say Van Dyke used his access to classified information about the operation to capture Maduro in January to win money on Polymarket, one of the largest prediction markets. The sites allow people to trade on almost anything — from the Super Bowl to U.S. elections and even the winners of the TV reality shows.
Van Dyke, who is stationed at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina, was charged Thursday with the 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 on four of the criminal counts, and up to 20 years on a fifth, the government said Friday. A publicly listed phone number listed for Van Dyke isn’t in service.
Van Dyke, 38, was involved for about a month in the planning and execution of capturing Maduro, according to the New York federal prosecutor’s office. He signed nondisclosure agreements promising to not divulge “any classified or sensitive information” related to the operations, but prosecutors say he used what he knew to make a series of bets related to Maduro being out of power by Jan. 31.
“This involved a U.S. soldier who allegedly took advantage of his position to profit off of a righteous military operation,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post.
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said in a post on X that the company flagged the suspicious activity, turned it over to the government and cooperated with the investigation.
“Every trade is public, permanent, and auditable,” Coplan wrote. “Bad actors leave a trail.”
Massive profits from well-timed bets aroused public attention days after the raid in Venezuela and brought bipartisan calls for stricter regulation of the markets.
The sudden rise of these markets has led to growing scrutiny by Congress and state governments. Some lawmakers alarmed by highly specific, well-timed trades on the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran and wagers on President Donald Trump’s next moves have pushed for guardrails against insider trading.
The Trump administration has been supportive of the industry’s expansion. The president’s eldest son is an adviser for both Polymarket and its main competitor, Kalshi,, and is a Polymarket investor. Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, is launching its own prediction market called Truth Predict.
Van Dyke moved into a home in Fayetteville just weeks ago, said Larry Duncan, one of his new neighbors.
“I introduced myself. I asked if he needed any assistance,” said Duncan, who once served in the Marines. “I said, ‘You look like special forces.’ He just smiled. I worked on a contract at Fort Bragg. I know how those people carry themselves. He was tatted up, quiet, kind of secretive.”
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, announced Thursday that it had filed a parallel complaint against Van Dyke.
That complaint alleges that Van Dyke moved $35,000 from his personal bank account into a cryptocurrency exchange account on Dec. 26 — a little over a week before U.S. forces flew into Caracas and seized Maduro.
Van Dyke made a series of bets on when Maduro might be removed from power, according to the complaint. He placed those bets between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2, with the vast majority occurring the night of Jan. 2 — just hours before the first missiles struck Caracas.
The bets resulted in “more than $404,000 of profits,” the complaint says.
“The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about U.S. operations and yet took action that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of American service members in harm’s way,” said Michael Selig, the commission’s chairman.
Associated Press reporters Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, Ed White in Detroit and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
