A soldier accused of cashing in on a bet tied to the dramatic abduction of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro said the operation was the “sketchiest thing” he ever did, says a woman he pursued on Facebook Messenger.
Federal prosecutors say Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, raked in more than $400,000 by exploiting classified knowledge of a covert U.S. operation that removed Maduro from power—then quietly funneled his winnings into a foreign cryptocurrency account.
A romantic interest of Van Dyke, Gianna Lutz, told The Wall Street Journal that the Army soldier had reached out to her on Facebook to express his interest and then spoke freely about his military work.
In messages obtained by the outlet, he told Lutz that he had participated in something “all over the news a couple months ago,” an operation significant enough, he claimed, to earn him an invitation to meet the president.
“It was definitely the sketchiest thing I have ever had to do,” he wrote, despite signing a non-disclosure agreement that required him not to share “any classified or sensitive information” relating to the mission.
The operation began with targeted airstrikes before American forces stormed Caracas and captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in January. The pair were flown out of Venezuela and taken into U.S. custody, where they now face narco-terrorism charges.
The capture has been described as the most aggressive U.S. action in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama. Following the strikes, a bloc of Latin American nations quickly blasted the U.S. operation, warning it violated the “fundamental principles of international law.”
After collecting his winnings, Van Dyke, who has been in the Army since 2008 and is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, allegedly transferred most of the funds to an overseas crypto account and asked the platform to delete his profile.
But Van Dyke’s digital paper trail—including his messages—caught up with him, and he was arrested this week. Lutz told the outlet that Van Dyke also divulged his post-Army ambitions with her.
In their exchanges, he described plans to retire soon, expand a growing real estate portfolio, and launch a tech consulting firm.
Property records show Van Dyke had already been quietly building wealth for years, snapping up homes in the $100,000 to $300,000 range, including a $340,000 three-bedroom the same month as the Maduro operation.
Van Dyke is now facing five criminal charges, including unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain—but President Donald Trump, who wields the power to pardon, has suggested he is sympathetic to the soldier.
He equated Van Dyke’s wager to “Pete Rose betting on his own team,” a reference to the baseball player who was banned from the sport for placing bets on himself and teammates.
“Pete Rose, they kept him out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team,” Trump continued. “Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team.”
