Late last week, the US Department of Justice released a grand jury indictment of Army special forces soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, charging the master sergeant with five counts of crimes associated with using classified intel for profit on the Polymarket exchange. The indictment stems from various trades Van Dyke made during late 2025 in the lead up to military action in Venezuela – which the DOJ claims Van Dyke participated in.
READ: US v. Gannon Ken Van Dyke (April 24, 2026)
Van Dyke was arrested on Thursday, according to ABC News. The accusations against Van Dyke are as follows:
Count 1: Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain
Count 2: Theft of Nonpublic Government Information
Count 3: Commodities Fraud
Count 4: Wire Fraud
Count 5: Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity
Polymarket originally referred the suspicious activity to federal authorities shortly after the trades occurred, according to a social media post on X.
A subsequent communication from Polymarket Chief Legal Officer Neal Kumar stated, “Today proved just how easy it is to find & charge criminal insider trading when markets are onchain. It’s not anonymous — you will be found just like this guy.”
SOURCE: Neal Kumar, Polymarket X account – April 23, 2026
In March of this year, Polymarket revamped its market integrity rules to better combat insider trading and other prohibited behavior. The new rules address three core categories: trading on stolen confidential information, trading on illegal tips, and trading by those who can influence the outcome.
Prediction market integrity has become a hot-button issue that has spread through the realms of American politics and culture alike, with high profile accusations that routinely breach the mainstream news cycle. Just last week, Kalshi fined and suspended the accounts of three congressional candidates who, according to the prediction market exchange, placed trades on their own elections.
The federal indictment and arrest of a US special forces soldier who is accused of using classified intel to profit on prediction market trades has attracted the attention of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Over the weekend, Special Assistant and Research Associate to the President Samuel Lazarus authored a sobering reminder of the dangers related to insider trading of classified information.
“Geopolitical prediction markets offer an unprecedented incentive for national security insiders to leak classified information by wagering on geopolitical contingencies—and they are uniquely transparent venues for adversaries to exploit those leaks,” Lazarus writes.
The editorial casts prediction market apps such as Kalshi and Polymarket in a negative light, and opines that proclamations of success related to improved, in-house investigations “miss the forest for the trees. By the time a national security insider is caught trading, the damage is done.”
Loading …
