A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who participated in the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty to charges Tuesday after allegedly winning over $400,000 for betting that the dictator would be apprehended.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old master sergeant in the U.S. Army, gave his not guilty plea in a New York federal court, according to CBS News. He bet over $33,000 on Polymarket that Maduro would be captured before the news was made public, a Justice Department (DOJ) indictment alleged. He faces charges of unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, commodities fraud, theft of nonpublic government information, making an unlawful monetary transaction and wire fraud. The U.S. military captured Maduro on Jan. 3 in Operation Absolute Resolve, ousting the dictator from Venezuela in the early hours of the morning.
Van Dyke was apprehended earlier in April on the charges, CBS News reported. A federal judge released him on a $250,000 personal recognizance bond and barred him from traveling outside of New York, North Carolina, and California, according to NBC News. Van Dyke has served on active duty with the U.S. Army since 2008 and became a Special Forces master sergeant in 2023, the indictment read. He was stationed at Fort Bragg, according to the DOJ.
Van Dyke participated in the planning and carrying out of Operation Absolute Resolve and was able to access sensitive, classified information regarding the military operation, the indictment alleged. Van Dyke also signed non-disclosure agreements vowing to “never divulge, publish, or reveal by writing, words, conduct, or otherwise . . . any classified or sensitive information” connected to military operations, according to the DOJ.
In 2025, Polymarket started hosting event contracts related to whether or not Maduro would be captured by the U.S., according to the indictment. Van Dyke launched a Polymarket account on Dec. 26, 2025 and lodged around 13 bets from Dec. 27, 2025 through the evening of Jan. 2, 2026 that Maduro would be removed from office by Jan. 31., the DOJ alleged.
He allegedly sent most of his unlawful earnings to a foreign cryptocurrency vault and deposited them into a newly created online brokerage account, and then withdrew the majority of his earnings from his Polymarket account on the day of the raid, according to the indictment. He allegedly took steps to conceal his identity in the Maduro-related contracts on Polymarket including by asking the company to delete his account after claiming he’d lost access to the email address he tied to his account.
His actions followed media reports of unusual trading related to the Maduro-related contracts offered by Polymarket, according to the DOJ. Polymarket flagged Van Dyke’s alleged actions as suspicious and contacted the government, according to the company CEO Shayne Coplan, CBS News reported. (RELATED: Betting Degeneracy Has Reached World Of Kidnapping And Killing)
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche reacted to Van Dyke’s indictment at the time.
“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” Blanche said. “Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.”
Van Dyke will appear in court again in June, according to NBC News.