US particular forces soldier who helped seize Venezuelan President Maduro is ARRESTED for ‘putting wager on the raid’
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 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.
‘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.
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, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.
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.
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.
‘Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve, a military operation to capture Maduro, and had access to sensitive, nonpublic, classified information about that operation,’ the US Attorney’s Office wrote.
Captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is escorted in Manhattan for an initial appearance to face U.S. federal charges including narco-terrorism, conspiracy, drug trafficking, money laundering and others on January 5, 2026
Trump shared on Truth Social a photo of Nicolas Maduro captured and subdued
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
Van Dyke, an active-duty soldier stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, is now facing five criminal charges.
Just last month, Maduro, 63, returned to court alongside his wife after spending nearly three months locked up at the grim 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.
This is a breaking news story.
