Fort Bragg soldier granted bond in classified Maduro raid betting case

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A U.S. special forces soldier stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina was granted bond Friday on charges that he used classified information about a military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to win more than $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket, according to reporting from LEX 18 News.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, was released on a $250,000 unsecured bond by a federal magistrate in North Carolina and ordered to report to a New York federal courthouse by Tuesday. Van Dyke is 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. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the most serious count.

Federal prosecutors allege that Van Dyke, who was involved in planning and executing the January operation against Maduro, placed a series of bets between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2 predicting Maduro would be removed from power. The majority of those bets occurred on the night of Jan. 2, just hours before U.S. forces conducted the operation in Caracas. Van Dyke had moved $35,000 into a cryptocurrency exchange account on Dec. 26, according to a complaint filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said the company flagged the suspicious activity and cooperated with the investigation, noting that every trade on the platform is public, permanent and auditable. The case has sparked bipartisan calls for stricter regulation of prediction markets and drawn scrutiny from Congress regarding potential insider trading on geopolitical events and other high-stakes outcomes.

FBI Director Kash Patel called the case an example of "a U.S. soldier who allegedly took advantage of his position to profit off of a righteous military operation." The Trump administration has been supportive of the prediction market industry's expansion, with the president's eldest son serving as an adviser and investor in both Polymarket and competitor Kalshi.