US Special Agent Gannon Ken van Dyk has been a very busy man in recent years – both in and out of uniform.
He rose to the rank of master sergeant at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he signed a nondisclosure agreement to handle covert operations.
Prosecutors claim that this duty includes his role in the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in early January 2026.
He started a real estate company and bought at least six houses.
He monitored the tenants and communicated with the guests in the house he was renting out through the platform Airbnb .
He called that mountain vacation home “Daddy Bear’s Cave,” which earned him praise and enthusiastic comments.
Van Dyke also, according to the federal indictment, used information about top-secret operations to trade on Polymarket and reportedly made more than $400,000 (about €340,000) betting on Maduro’s removal.
The takedown involved a covert military operation in which, prosecutors allege, Van Dyke played a role in planning and execution.
Between Dec. 27 and Jan. 2, the US Army officer placed bets worth about 29,000 euros on Maduro and Venezuela, the unsealed indictment says.
Among other things, the bets predicted when US forces would enter Venezuela and when Maduro would be ousted, the filing said.
Van Dyke faces charges of unlawfully using classified government information for personal gain, theft of non-public government information, wire fraud and making illegal monetary transactions.
He is scheduled to be arraigned in New York in the first week of May.
In a separate lawsuit filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an independent US federal agency, Van Dyke is accused of insider trading.
From the military base to Airbnb
Van Dyke has been a member of the US Army since 2008, and has been a sergeant in the US Army Special Forces since 2023, the indictment states.
During his time at Fort Bragg, he was trained in special operations.
In September 2018, Van Dyke signed a non-disclosure agreement.
He promised that he would “never reveal anything” labeled as “sensitive” information or even know about it.
The federal court filings did not detail Van Dyke’s day-to-day duties, nor his exact role in the operation to arrest Maduro.
The operation included airstrikes, a network of spies on the ground and a massive military presence in the region that has been ramped up for months.
In addition to his work in the army, Van Dyke was also an ambitious businessman, as his and his wife’s social media profiles reveal.
He did not mention military life on Instagram.
Along with a shirtless profile photo, his bio describes himself as a father and “real estate investor based in Fayetteville, North Carolina.”
He is signed on Linkedin as the owner of the company Better Homes NC LLCregistered in 2022, and his profile photo is the company logo.
A few years ago, posting on a real estate investment forum, he wrote: “I currently own five properties, but plan to buy 2-3 more this year, so it’s important for me to expand.”
His mountain accommodation at Airbnb – where he is rated as a “superhost” – has guest reviews calling Van Dyke “helpful”, “attentive” and quick to respond.
The profile of the soldier also states that he likes “to travel and do everything related to nature; hiking, camping, cycling, boating.”
Van Dyke bought the last three-bedroom, 223-square-meter house, worth $340,000, 20 days after Maduro’s arrest, according to available records.
His wife often had posts on social media about houses for sale or rent, advertising and looking for tenants through companies Better Homes and Coldwell Banker Advantage.
Her Instagram profile disappeared on April 24, and was previously full of cheerful content about coffee shops and pet rescue.
In recent posts, she did not mention her husband, and on his Facebook profile it says that he is “single”.
The ‘Wild West’ of the betting world
The operation and use of Polymarket, a platform based on cryptocurrency trading, is increasingly under the scrutiny of the US media.
Concerns are growing that US government officials are using classified information for betting.
In early January, the Trump administration came under fire when it was revealed that someone had made nearly half a million dollars from Maduro’s arrest.
At first it was not clear who was betting, and the anonymous user account was made up of letters and numbers.
“Many of the people who participate in Polymarket are not identified precisely because of the blockchain technology,” Professor Joshua Mitts of Columbia Law School told the BBC.
“So it’s the Wild West, because for most of the Polymarket participants, we just don’t know who they are. All we have is a blockchain address.”
Blockchain technology is a decentralized, digital database used to record transactions or information across many computers.
This technology enables the secure exchange of data and assets without the need for intermediaries.
However, Van Dyke allegedly used a personal email address to open a Polymarket account.
Prosecutors say that when the bet ended up in the news, Van Dyke tried to hide his identity and delete the account.
According to the Ministry of Justice, he allegedly withdrew the winnings – about $409,881 (about €350,000) – and transferred most of the funds to a foreign cryptocurrency “vault” that generates interest.
The indictment alleges that he changed the email address on his own cryptocurrency exchange account.
Then on Jan. 16, he allegedly transferred the funds and accrued interest — approximately $444,209 — to a newly created brokerage account.
Investigators say they were able to uncover his alleged betting history.
The indictment alleges that on December 26, 2025, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account using a virtual private network (VPN), which showed he was allegedly located outside the US.
The following week, he allegedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on a series of bets.
Just hours after Van Dyke’s latest alleged bet on January 3, US President Donald Trump broke the news about the arrest of Maduro and his wife Silje Flores in Caracas.
The couple was transferred to an American warship Iwo Jima in the Caribbean Sea.
It didn’t take long before Polimarket paid off bets related to Maduro and Venezuela.
An hour after Trump’s announcement, Van Dyke posted the photo to his own Google account, according to prosecutors.
In the photo, Van Dyke is carrying a rifle and posing with other soldiers in uniform.
It looked as if they were on the deck of a ship at sea, with the sun rising over the horizon.
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