On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that a U.S. soldier had been charged with a litany of crimes.
According to theDOJ, a U.S. Army soldier was hit with charges of “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 soldier was identified as Gannon Ken Van Dyke.
The charges stem from an alleged scheme in which Van Dyke used sensitive classified information to make bets on what’s known as a “prediction marketplace” — Polymarket, in this case — where bettors can wager on a variety of non-traditional items, such as whether or not the Jan. 3 U.S. military operation targeting Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro would be successful.
Van Dyke allegedly made such a bet and received a handsome payout of over $400,000.
The accompanying statements with the DOJ release showed that the department was taking this matter very seriously.
“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
“Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.”
“Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law, and this FBI will do whatever it takes to defend the homeland and safeguard our nation’s secrets,” FBI Director Kash Patel added.
“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York said.
Source: VidNews » Feed
