The US Justice Department announced that an American special forces soldier has been arrested and charged after pocketing more than $400,000 by betting, using classified information, on the timing of the Trump administration’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.
Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an active‑duty Army soldier who took part in planning and executing the operation to kidnap Maduro in early January, was charged with “unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction,” the Justice Department said.
Van Dyke placed 13 bets totaling roughly $33,000 on the prediction platform Polymarket, taking the “yes” position on questions about whether US forces would invade Venezuela and remove Maduro before the end of January.
President Donald Trump, who has profited massively from his second term in the White House, told reporters on Thursday that he wasn’t aware of the charges against Van Dyke. The president asked, “Was he betting that they would get [Maduro] or they wouldn’t get him?” He added, “That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team. Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good.”
Last year on February 28 Trump posted on Truth Social that he planned to issue “a complete PARDON of Pete Rose,” saying Rose “shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.”
The unsealing of the Van Dyke indictment comes amid growing worries that insiders in the Trump administration—criticized by experts and watchdogs as unusually corrupt—are profiting from nonpublic knowledge.
“This soldier was probably just copying what he’s seeing elsewhere,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D‑Ill.). “The culture of insider trading and corruption starts at the top and is permeating everywhere and everything. This is what people hate about our government now.”
Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, noted the oddity of a soldier being arrested over bets tied to an operation he helped carry out, saying he looked forward to seeing who would be held accountable for the “lawless use of military force.”
Suspiciously timed wagers on the Maduro abduction and on a US military assault on Iran have raised alarm about potentially widespread insider trading among those close to the president. Last month the Financial Times reported that Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth’s broker tried to make a multimillion‑dollar investment in weapons stocks in the weeks before the US‑Israeli attack on Iran.
“The Iran War has become a corruption racket for the people close to President Trump,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D‑Conn.), lead Senate sponsor of legislation that would ban wagering on government actions, terrorism, war, assassination, and events where an individual knows or controls the outcome.
-Common Dreams
