Friday April 24 2026

Hacker Times

US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

Discussion

throwaway2037•about 3 hours ago

The OP wrote:

    > Imagine doing an easy tour in your air conditioned Kuwaiti logistics office and then getting blown to bits by a ballistic missile because no one bothered to tell you about the war that was being initiated which would cause such missiles in retaliation.

The purpose of my response wasn't about cost effectiveness; rather, it was about the lethality of a ballistic missile vs Shahed-type drone.

A ballistic missile is easily detected by a network of outer space satellites owned and operated by the US Space Force. Whether or not you can defend against it is a different question. There is sufficient time from the detected of ballistic missile launch to move to a hardened underground bunker. All US bases in the Middle East will have these. Soldiers will regularly train for incoming ballistic missile attacks and when/how to move to underground bunkers. As a result, it is very unlikely that soldiers in an "air conditioned Kuwaiti logistics office" would be killed by an incoming ballistic missile.

On the other hand, a Shahed-type drone (similar to a cruise missile) is much harder to detect because they fly very low and difficult to catch on rader until close to base. As a result, soldiers on base will have much less time to move to underground bunkers.

bostik•about 6 hours ago

It's a bit more nuanced than that, because we're not talking about outright market manipulation. Absent any other information, the market makers always assume that they might be trading against a better informed counterparty - so absent any other signal, the prices at which executions happen are themselves a signal.

Think about it: you have N market makers offering both sides of the trade with a spread between them. When there is no other meaningful activity, the best prices are more or less stable. Now someone comes in and buys one side of the trade. Each marker maker will, individually, make the same two decisions:

    1. "If you bought at that price, I should raise my price and charge you more"
    2. "Since you bought at that price, I must assume you have more information and I should get out the way to avoid an expensive mistake"

The magnitude of the decisions made depends on various factors, but as a short-hand the size of the made trades in respect to the overall liquidity available near the midpoint directs how strongly the market makers react. A tiny trickle of insignificant trades does not move the price in any meaningful way (unless the sizes are so small that the execution commission starts to make a difference). A sustained directional flood of trades will cause the midpoint (and volume) to move to the direction where the market makers can sell at higher prices and avoid accumulating any further losses.

cauch•about 4 hours ago

But you are doing the same as what you are complaining about.

Racism is a complex phenomenon not limited to the simplistic view "they don't like black people". This representation is doing a disservice when some truly racist people are then justifying their actions and beliefs by saying "I cannot be racist, I'm friend with the garbage man who is black: he is a good black man, is polite to me and stay at his place. So, if I'm not racist, what I'm doing is just legitimate".

In the context of Tulsa, it is difficult to believe that the frustration of racist people seeing black people more successful than them has not contributed to the situation. It seems very natural and logical (and that's even the core of "white supremacy": it clearly states that white people deserve a better position in the social hierarchy than black people: white supremacy framing is all about how some classes are reserved to white people and not black people), and if you are claiming that it is not the case, you are the one with the burden of the proof.

While you have a point on raising that racism should not be reduced to only a class issue, you should have raised that as a precision around the discussion instead of presenting it as if racism has absolutely nothing to do with class and class sentiment.

To take back your parallel, what you do can be seen as: "A person entered a bar and was raped" (what you say) vs "A woman entered a bar and was raped". While nobody here claims that men cannot be raped, there is social phenomenon that create a gender imbalance, and it is important to not reduce the situation to "it has nothing to do with gender and the social norms around it".

In the rest of your comment, you, yourself, are doing a lot of interpretations. The fact that someone noticed that a class factor may have had an impact does not mean that they or all readers will conclude that it is the only way racism can happen (that is a huge stretch: if they know what happened at Tulsa, they very probably know a lot of other cases where the "only due to class" theory does not hold up). Same for "victim blaming": the fact that they were successful were obviously not used to excuse the massacre or pretend that somehow it was the black people's fault, the context is clearly to condemn the white racist people (and the success of the black people seems to be presented as an obvious additional factor on the racists, as it is obviously unfair to pretend that some people don't have the right to be successful).

I think the first comment was not totally perfect and would have been 100% fine if they would have simply added "class was one of the factor". But I think your reaction has way more problems and does a bigger disservice by reducing racism to a framework that can easily be instrumentalised by real racist people.

A US special forces soldier involved in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was arrested and charged for allegedly betting on that operation, netting him $400,000 in profits.

According to an indictment unsealed Thursday, Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke opened an account in late December on Polymarket, one of the best-known prediction markets. He wagered about $32,000 that Maduro would be “out” by January. The bet was a long-shot.

But Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve, prosecutors allege, and had access to classified information before he placed the bet. His winnings, though anonymous, caught the attention of law enforcement almost immediately.

Van Dyke, an active duty soldier stationed at Fort Bragg, faces five criminal charges for stealing and misusing confidential government information, theft and fraud. He will make his first court appearance in North Carolina. No attorney has been listed for him on the court docket.

He allegedly made 13 bets from December 27 to January 2, the last being hours before the overnight capture. Prosecutors said Van Dyke sent his more than $400,000 in profits to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before he deposited them in an online brokerage account.

A master sergeant in the Army is a senior noncommissioned officer, considered a key tactical leader and technical expert and serving as the principal NCO typically at the Army battalion level. Senior NCOs are often looked to for setting and upholding the standard for more junior soldiers in the unit.

elie 2.jpg

Video Ad Feedback

US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400,000 on Maduro raid

0:40 • Source: CNN

elie 2.jpg

US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400,000 on Maduro raid

0:40

“Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain,” said Jay Clayton, US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Van Dyke was photographed just after the operation – and from when he placed his final bet – on “what appears to be the deck of a ship at sea, at sunrise wearing U.S. military fatigues, and carrying a rifle, standing alongside three other individuals wearing U.S. military fatigues,” court documents say.

Van Dyke profited more than $400,000, prosecutors say. He then allegedly moved those winnings to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before he deposited them in an online brokerage account in what prosecutors called an attempt to conceal their origin.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a related complaint against Van Dyke on Thursday, seeking restitution, disgorgement and civil monetary penalties.

CNN reported last month that federal prosecutors were investigating the Maduro trade, according to a person familiar with the matter. The chiefs of the securities and commodity fraud unit at the US attorney’s office in Manhattan met with representatives at Polymarket last month.

After the bets were placed, the US military launched a covert operation that extradited Maduro from the presidential palace in Caracas in an overnight capture while coming under heavy fire. Maduro was transported to New York to face federal drug-trafficking related charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

Polymarket in a post on X said, “When we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation. Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today’s arrest is proof the system works.”

ABC News first reported Thursday’s arrest.

Trading on prediction markets has exploded the past year, with users now spending a few billion dollars each week on such sites.

Lawmakers in Congress have introduced more than a dozen new bills this year to further regulate prediction markets. Some of the bills, which gained bipartisan support, would stiffen penalties against government officials who engage in insider trading.

Trump told reporters Thursday he is concerned about the growing trend of betting on geopolitical events. Asked about the charges against the US soldier, the president said he was not familiar with the specifics of the incident but compared it to baseball’s all-time hit leader Pete Rose.

“That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team,” Trump said, referring to the late baseball player who was banned from baseball for gambling.

Pressed on whether he is concerned about betting tied to the war with Iran, Trump said it’s a global issue.

“Well I think that the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino,” Trump said, adding that such betting is happening “all over the world, and every place they’re doing these betting things.”

“Now, I think that I’m not happy with it,” he concluded.

The Trump administration approved Polymarket last year to start offering trades for American customers, but its US-facing site isn’t fully operational yet. The Maduro-related trades occurred on Polymarket’s highly popular international site.

That site operates out of the reach of US regulations – which is how it’s able to offer markets related to war, which is illegal under federal law. But experts say Americans can easily access the offshore site with a virtual private network, or VPN.

There is a debate in the prediction market industry over the role of insiders in prediction markets. Some experts see these markets as a vehicle for information to flow more freely from insiders to the general public.

Asked about insider trading risks, Polymarket’s CEO told Axios in November it was “super cool” that his platform “creates this financial incentive for people to go and divulge the information to the market,” including insiders.

Polymarket rolled out new rules in March, to “clarify three core categories of prohibited insider trading conduct.”

They banned trades based on information that users were legally required to keep confidential, and trades based on tips from someone with the same obligation. They also said people in “a position of authority or influence” to affect the outcome of an event cannot participate in any related markets.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Haley Britzky and Alejandria Jaramillo contributed to this report.