Federal authorities arrested a special forces soldier on Thursday after investigators tied him to a betting scheme that allegedly paid out more than $400,000 on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The soldier is accused of pocketing the money by wagering on Maduro's removal from office just hours before President Donald Trump announced the Venezuelan leader had been captured.
Sources told News the commando was directly involved in the military operation that resulted in the capture of Maduro and his wife. Federal investigators believe he bet more than $33,000 on Polymarket before Trump's announcement in January, with wagers focused on whether Maduro would be out of office by Jan. 31 and whether the United States would invade Venezuela.
According to Polymarket, a trader who opened an account in Dec. 2025 placed $33,933 across four predictions tied to the U.S. invasion of Venezuela and Maduro's capture. The largest position was a $32,537 bet that Maduro would be out of office by Jan. 31, and that trade alone produced a 1,242% profit of $404,222. In all, the series of bets netted more than $409,000.
The arrest and indictment are believed to be the first time the Justice Department has prosecuted an insider trading case on a prediction market. Polymarket lets traders anonymously bet on future events through yes-or-no contracts, a system that has drawn fresh scrutiny as suspiciously timed trades have cropped up there and on Kalshi. Another Polymarket user, meanwhile, made roughly $550,000 from bets tied to the United States striking Iran and the removal of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The case lands as prosecutors sharpen their focus on whether old-market fraud laws can reach this new corner of finance. In early March, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said prosecutors were looking at ways to pursue people who try to game prediction markets, and Noah Solowiejczyk has said the Commodities Exchange Act covers situations like this. For now, the soldier's arrest puts a military operation, a betting platform and a federal fraud theory in the same file.
