The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Gannon Ken Van Dyke, alleging he traded Polymarket.com event contracts using classified nonpublic information relating to a U.S. operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The CFTC seeks restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction for alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations. According to the complaint, Van Dyke, an active-duty U.S. Army service member involved in planning and executing Operation Absolute Resolve from at least December 2025 through January 2026, acquired classified or sensitive information and used it to buy more than 436,000 'Yes' shares in the 'Maduro Out by January 31, 2026?' contract between December 30, 2025 and January 2, 2026. The filing alleges the trading, conducted under the Polymarket handle 'Burdensome-Mix,' generated more than USD 404,000 in profits, and marks the first CFTC insider-trading case involving event contracts and the agency’s first use of the so-called 'Eddie Murphy Rule' based on misuse of government information. In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on April 23, 2026 that an indictment against Van Dyke alleging similar conduct had been unsealed in the same court.

Original source View in tracker