US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

That’s hilarious … so he’s arrested and put on trial and all the senate and congress are doing the exact same and free? lol

Since this is relevant to many HN comments, copy-pasted the charges from the pdf indictment in the linked page:

Count 1 - Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain

Count 2 - Theft of Nonpublic Government Information

Count 3 - Commodities Fraud

Count 4 - Wire Fraud

Count 5 - Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity

It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.

This looks like the wallet lol - https://polyintel.io/trader/0x31a56e9e690c621ed21de08cb559e9...

What’s the point of prediction markets?

They are just ordinary gambling unless you allow insider trading and manipulation, because that’s the only way the market can acquire and represent novel useful information.

But if you allow those things, you run into a host of well-documented problems which are the reason why those things are forbidden in other markets.

As it stands, prediction markets seem like a tech-aligned rebranding of age-old rigged gambling products.

Solving insider trading is fundamentally impossible due to the burden of proof.

However I am convinced that forcing people to keep their shares for even just one week would stabilize the markets enough to make insider trading much more obvious (and easier to prosecute). It would also force a shift on perspectives more on the long run, instead of focusing on immediate speculation.

This was a prediction market, not a proper market trade, and I am glad I live in a country where that is outlawed. This is untaxed, unregulated gambling.

Are prediction markets regulated? Is this about breaking the laws regarding prediction markets or is this about leaking classified information? I skimmed but not sure still.

Someone more cynical can say that this is about protecting Thiel’s investment(if people think it’s rigged may stop playing) or making sure that only big G makes money with classified information.

He'll be pardoned shortly.

Wilhoit’s Law

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

Albeit wrongly attributed. [1]

[1]: https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...

I was under the impression that insider influence was the point of these systems? Want something to happen? Bet a lot of money that it won't, pulling the market forces towards the action you want.

It goes from "taking out a hit" to "betting that someone will live to next Thursday". It's such an obvious outcome of these systems that I was operating on the assumption that it was the actual point.

So maybe the thing this guy did wrong was to be so face-palmingly pants-on-head obvious about it that they had to shut it down?

Nabbing the little guy for show, very much like Henry Hill taking one for Paulie and the gang. The same gang that robbed the Lufthansa vault at JFK Airport, stealing six million dollars in cash and jewelry.

When the history of this administration is written, provided that history itself has not been completely rewritten a la "1984," Goodfellas will be required reading/watching.

And the highly profitable daily mood-induced oil price bets will just be forgotten.

Wilhoit's Law:

Wilhoit's law.

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

https://pylimitics.net/wilhoits-law/

We all know there were suspicious large bets on the stock and oil markets during the war.

If small potatoes are getting sued while the sharks swim freely. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the moral.

he went too small, need to go bigger to roll with the big boys

It's only illegal when you are not a politician apparently

Revolution time.

Insiders bet a solider would be caught for betting on Maduro. They won.

How many people in congress made the exact same bet on the exact same information, and for them it's "legal?"

It’s arguable that opening the doors for greedy soldiers to do a little insider trading and inadvertently expose the illegal covert violent raid that they’re party to might be one of the few positive outcomes in a society gamified by Polymarket

There are a lot of (rightly) critical comments here about the imbalance between prosecutions of high-ups taking bets and the grunts (in this case though, a senior-ranking soldier).

But it seems to me that the closer to the frontline you go, the betrayal is even worse; if the story is true, then these are his friends and comrades he is endangering for financial gain - its not just an abstract risk argued away by simple high-level corruption.

What about the rest of the Trump clan and their shady shit?

Donald Trump Jr. serves as an advisor to both Kalshi and Polymarket...it's just comical

I guess the rest can now bet on whether he will:

1. Apply for a presidential pardon.

2. Get it.

I thought prodiction markets benefit from insider knowledge. Isn't the whole point that insiders make bets, thereby surfacing knowledge and allowing for more accurate forecasts? So wouldn't we want more military service members making bets? In this case, any potential military target of the US would really want this insider info.

There’s 109 comments on this submission of the news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883108

Congress is protected but soliders arent from profiting. Why are laws so biased?

Prime example showing lack of more of any kind of soldiers and us army. They illegally kidnapped the president of the sovereign country - they should be all in jail!

USA is a rogue state at this point. NATO is at risk because of that.

What an idiot, don't input your real id and don't use own face in KYC. Omfg.

Morally it's ok to steal crypto from these types of markets, everybody is crooked there, client and market makers.

Some things do trickle down.

My respects to a real one, hope it turns out ok

He screwed himself by taking steps to show how much of an amateur he was, by trying to delete his polymarket account and change the email address on his crypto exchange account

He should have just cashed out and donated 20% of it to Mar-a-Lago saying exactly what he did and a thank you. It's a little too low for a club membership but since the President's family is a shareholder of Polymarket I think it would have been seen as attracting liquidity

AG would have been instructed to stamp out the investigation, no charges would have been filed

I thought the names in the opening were the people being charged. Then I realized they were the prosecutors.

Perfectly fine for the rich and powerful, but don't you average citizen dare do anything like it! The US law and justice system is a complete joke.

Prediction markets working as intended.

Cha-Ching! I bet $2000 that this guy was going to get charged.

Does polymarket have trial markets? Maybe 12% chance of being a mistrial - oh wait just shot up to 99%; new user called the_judge88 just bet $100K on that?

Nice. I'm against polymarket allowing bets on war precisely because of this. But I think we can all agree that perpetrators hold more liability than the platforms, they are the true cuplrits of warcrimes/treason.

His op-sec probably wasn't sufficient to hide his gains via multiple small bets, no-log VPN, and cycling through Monnero both ways. The next prediction market to directly use Monero and no-log will be untraceable.

So crypto fraud gets deprioritized, with cases like the one against Nader Al-Naji dropped entirely, while Trump and his family profit massively from crypto and corruption themselves.

Yet prediction market fraud is made an enforcement priority, except to say that nobody close to Trump's own cabinet will be prosecuted - the little guys will be made an example of to make it seem like those at the top are taking the moral high-ground. "Every accusation is a confession."

I think we all can guess at the truth here.

Rules for thee but not for me.

The entire corruption-as-service aspect of this is interesting.

I wonder when someone figures out vote-buying-as-service

Seems like he needed more Op/InfoSec training...

If you destroy the integrity of the professional military corps through destructive and despotic behaviour that drives out those who hold to their principles, soldiers like this are the result of Hegseth’s cultification.

Nobody should be surprised.

Hegseth thinks loyalists + AI as brains can replace decades of actual real-world experience and keeping the highest ethics and morality standards with a bunch of AI-driven baboons with stars on their shoulders.

Paul Krugman wrote a good piece about exactly this. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/cultifying-the-us-militar...

Everyone can already feel the ripples of what he is doing. There is an exodus in excellence in the upper echelons of the us military never seen before.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/22/navy-secreta...

The US is getting less safe by the day. You can also see it on tourism data and forecasts. A lot of people don’t feel safe to travel to the US any longer.

Soccer World Cup in the US and 250th anniversary of the USA would have caused a tourism boom with past administrations. But people rather go to China instead.

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/tourist...

what is that country

Bet your life, not your money on this mission please. Thankz.

Associated DOJ release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-soldier-charged-usin...

Silly prole, insider trading is a white collar crime reserved for your betters. Time to learn your place.

They should run for Congress

Now do all the rest of them

Everyone's a grifter these days.

The more surprising thing is that the common invasion soldier also benefits financially. So far we only knew that the oligarch system that is currently controlling the USA, also benefits massively - the stock market changes with regards to Iran showed this already, but also see the more recent comments made in regards not just to the orange king himself, but his family dynasty and their involvement; in particular orange king jr. is involved a LOT here, also with regards to that mentioned soldier (see the companies that were involved, crypto-stuff and so forth). This reminds me a bit of Epstein, in a way - so far the US justice system claims that only two people (the dead Epstain and his wife) organised all those naughty parties. Well, that is logistically simply impossible, aside from the question how they had all that money. How deep do these networks used by the superrich go? You have more and more victims who claimed not only to have been underage, but also service-sold to other rich people. Why are these latter people not in court? How corrupt is that system? Evidently we now know that these invasion soldiers also bet on their own invasions - I guess when they claim "we are doing work for Good" here they mean this with regards to their own pockets.

Just as Smedley D. Butler once stated, many many years ago: "War is a racket"

Feds waited no time to drop the indictment and make arrest. 3 months is lightning fast for a white collar crime. Wall St. ppl who commit insider trading pay a fine and admit no wrongdoing, discouraging the profits, and only after many years and trades have passed. Goes to show how elites play by a different set of rules. His mistake was not knowing he was not in that club. Have no idea why this was downvoted. I see so many other people who make this argument about privileged elites and always get upvoted.

so they catched this guy, yet pelosi and 300 others ate making millions every month, and nothing.. really people who has woken up, there is no words for this, yet the 80% are still asleep

What was his rank? What was his job? What was his clearance? How did he have access?

The canadians have the info. He was special forces. He was enlisted (not an officer). He was involved, or at least privy to, the planning of the Venezuela thing.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11814801/maduro-capture-polymarke...

In desperate times in the age of AI, one needs to grift in order to survive. This soldier was just doing that to maybe...enrich themselves like the politicians also breaking insider trading laws?

This is why no-one at the top institutions, politicians (Pelosi), presidents (Trump) and everyone else in proximity gets arrested or charged for insider trading in all forms. It doesn't apply to them.

This is a reminder that the rule makers are allowed to grift and break their own rules, but will arrest you for copying them or doing the same thing because this soldier was not part of their club.

He wasn't invited to their private insider group chat. So this solider was arrested and charged instead.

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lol no SEC lawsuit or civil complaint: strait to the indictment and arrest. Goes to show how elites are truly a privileged class. They get to admit "no guilt" and forfeit profits, avoiding prosecution. Have no idea why this was downvoted. I see so many other people who make this argument about privileged elites and always get upvoted. I never have the right opinion on anything.

Isn't this the purpose of Polymarket? To give a more accurate picture of what is going on/going to happen by giving insiders a financial incentive?

How is this illegal? Polymarket isn't a US-regulated market.