US special forces soldier who helped capture Venezuelan President Maduro is ARRESTED for ‘placing bet on the raid’

A US special forces soldier was arrested for allegedly betting on the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, even though he was part of the operation.

American soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke is accused of placing a $32,000 bet on Polymarket, one of the best-known prediction markets, that Maduro would be “out” by January, and later pocketing $400,000 after the president was captured.

“Today’s announcement makes clear that no one is above the law, and that the FBI will do whatever it takes to defend our homeland and protect our nation’s secrets,” said FBI Director Kash Patel.

‘Any permit holder who considers cashing out their access and information for personal gain will be held accountable,’ he added.

According to the indictment unsealed Thursday, Van Dyke is accused of creating and financing the betting account on or about Dec. 26, 2025, and beginning to trade in markets related to Maduro and Venezuela.

In total, he is alleged to have placed approximately 13 bets between late December and early January, repeatedly backing a ‘Yes’ outcome on scenarios involving US military intervention in Venezuela and Trump invoking war powers by January 31, 2026.

In the early hours of January 3 — just days after he opened his account — U.S. forces captured Maduro in a secret night raid conducted under heavy fire in Caracas, an operation that Van Dyke personally helped carry out.

“Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve, a military operation to capture Maduro, and had access to sensitive, nonpublic, classified information related to that operation,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote.

Van Dyke, an active-duty soldier stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, currently faces five charges.

Maduro was later transferred to New York, where he pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges.

But according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the scale of the trade associated with Operation Absolute Resolve immediately raised red flags for law enforcement.

Just last month, Maduro, 63, returned to court with his wife after spending nearly three months locked up in this horrific federal prison.

It marked the first time Maduro and former First Lady Cilia Flores appeared before a judge in New York since the hearing at which they were held at the infamous Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn following their dramatic arrests in January.

Dressed in prison clothes and with his legs held in shackles, the socialist leader’s face looked strikingly gaunt as he entered the courtroom.

She smiled politely and greeted her team in English, telling her lawyer, Barry Pollack, that she looked ‘elegant’.

Meanwhile, his wife, 69-year-old Cilia Flores, was seen to have fully recovered from the injuries she reportedly received during the couple’s capture, no longer wearing bandages and no visible bruises on her face.

This is breaking news.

Trump shared a photo of Nicolas Maduro being captured and subdued on Truth Social