The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is backing the criminal case against Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a US Army master sergeant accused of using classified military information to make more than $400,000 trading Polymarket event contracts tied to Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro.
In an August 21 notice, the CFTC asked the US District Judge Margaret M. Garnett for permission to file an amicus brief supporting prosecutors as Van Dyke seeks to dismiss Commodity Exchange Act charges. He argues the contracts are not swaps under federal law and says applying its anti-fraud provision to his conduct would be unconstitutional.
“Both contentions are wrong,” CFTC Counselor Cameron Sinsheimer wrote in the letter.
The regulator argues Congress defined swaps broadly enough to include the event contracts Van Dyke traded. It says adopting his interpretation could also significantly restrict federal oversight of prediction markets.
“Van Dyke’s distortion of the CEA’s text, if accepted, would undermine the Commission’s jurisdiction over a huge range of event contracts whose notional volume totals into the tens of billions of dollars,” Sinsheimer wrote.
CFTC says Polymarket event contracts fall under federal swaps law in US soldier case
Van Dyke, 38, served with US Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Prosecutors say his role in Operation Absolute Resolve gave him access to classified and other nonpublic details about a mission targeting Maduro.
“The core theory of the Indictment is that Van Dyke took information that he had pledged to keep confidential and, though he was duty-bound not to do so, he used it to make a personal profit,” prosecutors said.
Van Dyke had signed nondisclosure agreements covering classified material. One agreement concerning “Western Hemisphere Operations” said information obtained through his work “is now and will remain the property of the United States Government.”
According to prosecutors, he opened a Polymarket account on December 26, 2025, before spending about $33,934 on contracts involving Venezuela and Maduro through January 2. US special forces captured Maduro and his wife in Caracas on January 3. Prosecutors say the successful trades left Van Dyke with more than $400,000 in net profit.
A grand jury indicted him in April on five counts covering confidential government information, commodities and swap fraud, wire fraud and an unlawful monetary transaction. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $250,000 bail with travel restrictions.
Prosecutors have called it the Justice Department’s first criminal insider-trading prosecution involving prediction markets. Van Dyke moved to dismiss the indictment on July 31.
Van Dyke “committed an old crime on a new platform,” they said.
“Because the Indictment alleges all that it must,” prosecutors said, “the next step is trial.”
The CFTC also rejects Van Dyke’s argument that he lacked sufficient notice that federal law covered his alleged conduct. It points to the Commodity Exchange Act, its own regulatory actions and similar contracts traded on CFTC-registered exchanges.
The agency says its proposed filing could help the court address legal questions with implications beyond Van Dyke’s prosecution.
“Here, the proposed amicus brief is both timely and useful, and will aid the court in its deliberation of this matter by offering insights not available from the parties,” Sinsheimer wrote.
Featured image: CFTC via Wikimedia Commons / Canva
The post CFTC backs case against US soldier accused of Polymarket insider trading appeared first on ReadWrite.
This articles is written by : Fady Askharoun Samy Askharoun
All Rights Reserved to Amznusa www.amznusa.com
Why Amznusa?
AMZNUSA is a dynamic website that focuses on three primary categories: Technology, e-commerce and cryptocurrency news. It provides users with the latest updates and insights into online retail trends and the rapidly evolving world of digital currencies, helping visitors stay informed about both markets.
