By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK, April 28 (Reuters) – The U.S. Army soldier charged with winning $400,000 by using insider information to bet on the removal of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty to fraud charges on Tuesday.
Gannon Van Dyke, 38, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett’s courtroom in Manhattan. Van Dyke sported a shaved head and wore a black blazer, jeans and brown shoes as he arrived to the courtroom with his lawyers, Zach Intrater and Mark Geragos.
Last week, Van Dyke was arrested on a federal indictment charging him with placing $33,000 in bets on prediction market Polymarket between December 27, 2025, and January 2, 2026, that Maduro would soon be out of office and that U.S. forces would soon enter Venezuela.
Markets at the time assigned low probabilities to those events, leading to a big payout for Van Dyke, prosecutors said.
The case marks the first time the Justice Department has filed insider trading charges involving a prediction market. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also filed civil charges against Van Dyke.
Van Dyke, a master sergeant with U.S. Army Special Forces who is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, was involved in the “planning and execution” of the January 3, 2026, raid that captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, prosecutors said.
He faces five criminal counts: unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of non-public government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
Polymarket said it flagged Van Dyke’s trading to the authorities and cooperated with the investigation.
Rival prediction market Kalshi had previously blocked Van Dyke from opening an account due to the platform’s ID requirements, Reuters reported on Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Meyers in Raleigh, North Carolina, ordered Van Dyke released on $250,000 bond at his initial court appearance on Friday in Raleigh. Garnett is expected to oversee Van Dyke’s case going forward.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York, editing by Deepa Babington and Aurora Ellis)
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