A US Army soldier has been charged with placing bets tied to the capture of now-former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January.
The soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, allegedly made over $400,000 by trading on Polymarket by sharing classified information regarding the timing of the operation to capture Maduro in Venezuela, as per the Justice Department.
According to the prosecutors, Van Dyke, who was also part of the military operation, had placed $30,000 in bets on Polymarket, including one predicting Maduro would be out of power by the end of that month.
The prosecutors alleged that his last bet was placed hours before the US Special Forces apprehended Maduro.
Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton said that Van Dyke moved his profit to a foreign cryptocurrency account, the report added. Van Dyke requested that Polymarket, which has a data partnership with Dow Jones, delete his account.
Van Dyke, who didn’t respond to the accusations, is scheduled to bring an attorney to the federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Van Dyke was in touch with a woman, Gianna Lutz, on Facebook to express romantic interest, the report added. Van Dyke had sent her texts, which read, “Civilians don’t get the army stuff. Army people don’t get the business stuff.”
“Honestly, though, I don’t think it will keep me busy enough, so I’m working on launching a tech consulting firm,” he wrote to Lutz.
Van Dyke, stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, has been in the US military since 2008.
Van Dyke described himself on social media as a “real estate investor”.
As per the report, he started buying properties in 2013. He paid between $100,000 and $300,000 each, property records show. His latest purchase was a three-bedroom home worth $340,000 in January.