Army soldier who placed insider bets on Maduro capture asks for pretrial dismissal
Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a Special Forces master sergeant charged in connection with Polymarket bets tied to the January capture of Nicolas Maduro, asked a Manhattan federal judge to dismiss his five-count indictment, arguing his wagers were 'event contracts,' not regulated 'swaps' under the Commodity Exchange Act. Prosecutors say Van Dyke, involved in the capture operation despite signing nondisclosure agreements, turned roughly $34,000 in bets into more than $400,000 once the operation succeeded.
His attorneys argued the statute only covers instruments meant to hedge price risk, not prediction-market wagers on geopolitical events, while prosecutors countered that Congress defined 'swap' broadly enough to cover any event with a potential financial consequence. A separate defense argument claimed confidential military operation plans aren't 'property' under the wire fraud statute, so using them for personal gain isn't fraud in the legal sense.
Judge Margaret Garnett didn't rule immediately but signaled skepticism, noting the core allegation, that Van Dyke used classified information from an operation he participated in for personal financial gain, was a hard hurdle for the defense to clear on a motion to dismiss.
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