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The US Justice Department announced Thursday that an American special forces soldier has been arrested and charged for pocketing over $400,000 by betting, on the basis of classified information, on the timing of the Trump administration’s illegal abduction of Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an active-duty soldier in the US Army who was involved in planning and executing the operation to kidnap Maduro in early January, was charged with “unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

Van Dyke placed a total of 13 bets worth roughly $33,000 on the prediction platform Polymarket. All of his bets took the “yes” position on questions pertaining to whether US forces would invade Venezuela and remove Maduro before the end of January.

The unsealing of the Van Dyke indictment came amid mounting concerns that insiders at the Trump administration — which experts and watchdogs have deemed the most brazenly corrupt administration in US history — are profiting off nonpublic knowledge.

“This soldier was probably just copying what he’s seeing elsewhere,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.). “The culture of insider........

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