Author: Bilibili News

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, on the streets of Caracas, U.S. special forces, codenamed "Operation Absolute Resolve," raided a hidden residence and quickly took control of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores.

Hours later, the White House officially announced the operation's success. Just a week before the raid, a U.S. special forces sergeant major who was directly involved in the operation's planning had already placed bets on its victory in the market.

Military operations with advance betting

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, is a U.S. Special Forces Sergeant First Class, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As a senior sergeant, he is responsible for some tactical coordination and intelligence integration work.

Starting on December 8, 2025, he became deeply involved in the operation planning, gained access to highly classified, non-public intelligence, and personally signed a confidentiality agreement promising never to disclose any secrets related to military operations.

After obtaining the specific timeline for the operation, on December 24, 2025, Van Dyke first submitted an account opening application to a Designated Contract Market (DCM) that was officially licensed by the CFTC and allowed U.S. users to legally trade event contracts.

At the time, the platform had already launched prediction contracts related to Venezuela and Maduro's resignation. However, from December 26th to 28th, he contacted customer service multiple times for online consultation over three consecutive days, but was still unable to successfully open an account.

Late at night on December 26, 2025, he opened an account called “Burdensome-Mix” on Polymarket and used a VPN to bypass the platform’s restrictions on US users.

In the following six days, just before the military operation began, he placed 13 bets totaling $33,034, all in the "YES" direction, covering four core contracts:

"Will Maduro step down before January 31st?" "Will US troops enter Venezuela before January 31st?" "Will the US invade Venezuela before January 31st?" "Will Trump invoke the War Powers Act against Venezuela before January 31st?"

The largest single bet was $32,537, placed on a "Maduro step down" contract; he purchased a total of over 436,000 "Yes" shares.

In the early hours of January 3, the operation was a complete success, and all contracts were instantly settled as "YES." Van Dyke netted $409,881, a single return of 1,242%. This amount is almost equivalent to his entire income over several years as a special forces sergeant major.

Predicting the first qualitative assessment of insider trading in the market

Hours after the operation ended, Van Dyke began transferring funds: most of the profits were quickly transferred to overseas cryptocurrency vaults, and then deposited into newly opened brokerage accounts.

On January 6, he applied to Polymarket to delete his account, claiming that he had "lost access to his registered email address" and had even changed the email address linked to his account to an address that was not under his name and had been registered as a backup on December 14.

However, Polymarket's internal team quickly identified the unusual transaction, did not delete the account, and proactively transferred all leads to the U.S. Department of Justice. The platform's chief legal officer stated, "This platform is not anonymous; the user will eventually be found."

Shortly after the operation ended, a new photo appeared on Van Dyke's Google account: he was wearing a U.S. military combat uniform, holding a rifle, and standing on the deck of a warship with three comrades, with the rising sun over the sea in the background.

On April 23, the U.S. Department of Justice formally indicted Van Dyke in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on five counts: unlawful use of classified government information for personal gain, theft of non-public government information, goods fraud, wire fraud, and illegal currency transactions.

Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while the other charges each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years, with a potential total sentence of up to 60 years. This is the first time the U.S. Department of Justice has brought criminal charges against insider trading in prediction markets.

Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former SEC Chairman, stated, "Prediction markets are not a safe haven for abusing classified information for personal gain. The defendant's use of classified information to bet on military operations in which he personally participated constitutes clear insider trading and violates federal law."

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche added in a statement: "Prediction markets are a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information are fully applicable." The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) simultaneously filed a civil lawsuit in the same court, demanding the return of all illegal profits, payment of fines, and a permanent ban on its participation in futures and derivatives trading.

For the first time, the CFTC invoked Section 746 of the Dodd-Frank Act, commonly known as the "Eddie Murphy Rule," named after the 1983 film "Trading Places," which explicitly prohibits anyone from using stolen or misused non-public government information for the purpose of trading goods.

CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig used strong language: "The defendants were entrusted with classified information but took actions that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of U.S. service members at risk."

Incomplete compliance

The Van Dyke case is not an isolated case.

In February of this year, Israeli authorities arrested a reservist and a civilian, accusing them of profiting on Polymarket by using classified information about the Israeli military operation against Iran. In March, the account “Magamyman” began placing bets approximately 71 minutes before the joint US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, ultimately winning approximately $553,000.

Just one day before the Van Dyke case came to light, someone used a hair dryer to heat a temperature sensor near Charles de Gaulle Airport, manipulating weather station data to arbitrage from weather forecast contracts.

Polymarket reached a settlement with the CFTC in 2022 for operating illegally in the United States, and was forced to block US users, but VPNs can still easily bypass it; although the CFTC approved its compliant operation last year, the US site has not yet been fully launched.

Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s son, is serving on the Polymarket advisory board, and his venture capital firm 1789 Capital has already invested in the platform. The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, also just announced an additional $600 million investment in March, bringing its total investment to $1 billion.

The structural contradictions of prediction markets have been fully exposed. While blockchain has solved the problem of settlement trust, it can never solve the problem of the legitimacy of information sources.