Retired general on soldier accused of Maduro bet: ‘You can’t be that stupid’

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg on Friday said that the Army soldier involved in the military raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro who made more than $400,000 betting on the operation “can’t be that stupid.”

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a soldier stationed at Fort Bragg who was involved in the planning of the operation, has been accused of using classified information about the event to place bets on the prediction market Polymarket, federal officials said Thursday.

Van Dyke was charged with using confidential government information for personal gain after he allegedly made more than $400,000 in profits from the wagers.

Kellogg, who served as President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine until January, called the soldier’s behavior “disappointing.”

“I’d probably put him on an airplane, let him jump out from the airplane at 10,000 feet over Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg without a parachute,” he told News Nation’s Katie Team. “God, you can’t be that stupid. He knows better, they know better, and they should prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.”

Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that Van Dyke “allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the United States Government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that very operation, all to turn a profit.”

“That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law,” Clayton added. “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.”

Van Dyke allegedly created an account on Polymarket on Dec. 26 and placed about $33,000 worth of bets on markets about U.S. operations in Venezuela and Maduro’s ouster between Dec. 27 and Jan. 2 — with the last bet placed a day before the U.S. launched the operation in Venezuela.

He is facing three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Account, one count of wire fraud and one count of an unlawful money transaction.

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