A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who prosecutors alleged used classified military intelligence to place winning bets on a prediction market platform pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
The plea starts a case that prosecutors say represents the first-ever insider trading prosecution involving event contracts.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of Fayetteville, N.C., appeared before U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett in the Southern District of New York and entered his plea on five federal counts: unlawful use of confidential government information, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction. He faces up to 60 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
According to the indictment unsealed last week, Van Dyke was a Master Sergeant with U.S. Army Special Forces stationed at Fort Bragg and was directly involved in planning and executing Operation Absolute Resolve, the January special forces mission that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at a home in Caracas.
Prosecutors allege Van Dyke exploited that access methodically. On Dec. 8, 2025 – the same day he signed a nondisclosure agreement regarding Western Hemisphere operations – he was read into the classified details of the mission. Less than three weeks later, on Dec. 26, he created a Polymarket account, using a VPN routed through a foreign exit node to mask his location, and began trading under the alias “Burdensome-Mix.”
Over 13 separate transactions between Dec. 27 and the evening of Jan. 2, Van Dyke spent approximately $33,934 buying “YES” shares on markets tied to U.S. military action in Venezuela and Maduro’s removal from power – all while possessing classified, nonpublic information about the very operation those markets were tracking. Share prices on those contracts were still trading at just cents on the dollar, reflecting the public’s uncertainty about whether and when the mission would occur.
In the predawn hours of Jan. 3, U.S. special forces apprehended Maduro. Hours later, at about 5:45 a.m. EST, a photograph was taken of Van Dyke – in military fatigues, carrying a rifle, on what appears to be the deck of a ship at sea – and uploaded to his Google account. At 4:21 a.m., the president had announced the operation on social media. Polymarket resolved the relevant contracts to “YES” at $1 per share. Van Dyke’s total profit: about $409,881.
Prosecutors allege he moved quickly to cover his tracks. On Jan. 3, he transferred the bulk of his winnings, about $437,859, to a foreign cryptocurrency vault. On Jan. 6, as news reports flagged the unusual trading pattern, he asked Polymarket to delete his account, falsely claiming he had lost access to his email. He also changed the email on his cryptocurrency exchange account to one created under a different name in December 2025.
The concealment effort failed. Polymarket said it independently detected the suspicious activity and referred the matter to the Justice Department. A brokerage account prosecutors say contains about $415,511 traceable to the trades has been identified for forfeiture.
Van Dyke appeared Tuesday with retained private counsel – attorneys Zach Intrater and Tina Glandian – replacing the Federal Public Defender who represented him at his initial appearance in North Carolina last week. He was released on a $250,000 unsecured bond. His travel is restricted to federal districts in North Carolina, New York and California, and he must surrender his passport.
