The magistrate in North Carolina ordered Gannon Ken Van Dyke to be released on a $250,000 bond and told him to report to a New York federal courthouse by Tuesday to continue his case there.
Van Dyke said little during the nearly hourlong hearing, during which he was appointed a federal public defender.
Federal prosecutors say Van Dyke used his access to classified information about the operation to capture Maduro in January to win money on the prediction market site Polymarket.
Van Dyke, who is stationed at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina, was charged Thursday with the unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
He could face years in prison. A publicly listed phone number listed for Van Dyke isn't in service.
Van Dyke, 38, was involved for about a month in the planning and execution of capturing Maduro, according to the New York federal prosecutor’s office. He signed nondisclosure agreements promising to not divulge “any classified or sensitive information” related to the operations, but prosecutors say he used what he knew to make a series of bets related to Maduro being out of power by Jan. 31.
“This involved a U.S. soldier who allegedly took advantage of his position to profit off of a righteous military operation,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post.
Polymarket, one of the largest prediction markets, said it found someone trading on classified government information, alerted the Justice Department and “cooperated with their investigation.”
