A mysterious speculator doubled their position on the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro mere hours before explosions rocked Caracas, The Wall Street Journal reported. These wagers on Polymarket (a crypto-based betting platform) generated a windfall exceeding $400,000 – a twelvefold return – and ignited suspicions that someone leveraged confidential knowledge of the US military operation for personal gain, according to the outlet.
While the stock market maintains rigorous defenses against insider trading, the publication noted that prediction markets operate with fewer restrictions. The platform enables participants to wager on a variety of future events, ranging from political appointments to the World Cup or even character deaths in "Stranger Things". The anonymous user established an account last month and placed an initial bet on Dec. 27, buying contracts that would pay out if the US invaded Venezuela by Jan. 31.
Platform data cited by The Wall Street Journal indicates the individual increased their stakes over the following week as tensions escalated. The trader focused on contracts paying out if Maduro was ousted by month's end, a scenario that appeared unlikely at the time. The final bet was logged at 9:58 p.m. ET on Friday, shortly before the president ordered the military to strike. These contracts cost just 8 cents, implying users saw only an 8% chance of the leader's fall, the report stated.
When news of the US operation broke hours later, contract values surged. The trader ultimately secured nearly $410,000 in profit from roughly $34,000 in wagers, with over half the total amount placed the night before the attack, according to The Wall Street Journal. Observers told the outlet that the concentrated betting from a new account, absent public news of an imminent coup, points to insider involvement. The user operates under a blockchain-based pseudonym.
"It's more likely than not that this was an insider. That's a lot of money to put in at that price, without a lot of news," Tre Upshaw, founder of Polysights, told the publication. Legal experts suggest prosecution depends on jurisdiction. Noah Solowiejczyk, a partner at Fenwick & West, told the outlet that while a US official could face charges for misusing government information, American authorities might lack authority if the trader is a foreign national operating from abroad.
The Trump administration restricted knowledge of the plan to a small group of advisers to ensure surprise, the report noted. Following the revelation, Representative Ritchie Torres announced plans to introduce legislation banning federal officials from betting in markets where they possess nonpublic information, according to The Wall Street Journal. Although the platform theoretically prohibits Americans, the outlet noted that users frequently bypass this via VPNs (virtual private networks).
The platform has faced prior scrutiny. In December, a trader known as "0xafEe" made $1.2 million predicting Google search trends, per data cited by the report. The same user previously earned over $100,000 correctly betting on the release of the Gemini 3 AI model. Some observers called this user the "Google insider," suggesting reliance on nonpublic data. Solowiejczyk told the publication that such incidents would likely attract regulatory attention.
"Given how prevalent these incidents seem to be and how they are getting a lot of attention, I tend to think that eventually it is very likely we will see one of these cases," Solowiejczyk said, according to the report. In a December interview, CEO Shayne Coplan told the outlet that the community self-regulates. "The moment there is a suspected insider, it's pointed out on X, and it's visible on Polymarket immediately. So it's not like it's done in darkness," Coplan told The Wall Street Journal.
The company can conduct internal audits to investigate allegations, a source told the outlet. Past audits have usually found that the traders behind the suspicious activity weren't true insiders, but instead obtained information via legal means, such as scraping websites for clues of a coming announcement, the person added in the report.
