Federal prosecutors in Manhattan late Thursday announced stunning charges against an Army officer who allegedly traded on classified info involving the US military operation to capture former Venezuelan strong man Nicolás Maduro – netting $400,000.
Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken a much quieter approach to a surge of suspicious trades in the futures and prediction markets.
The legal community believes the SEC is probing well-timed, high-dollar trades that have lately capitalized on surprise news developments, though the details remain murky.
One well-connected securities lawyer who regularly deals with the commission says Chairman Paul Atkins is keenly interested in fair markets and sees potential insider trading as something that erodes trust among members of the investing public.
As a result, the attorney said, the SEC has launched what she believes is a formal investigation into the matter that includes requests for information from some market players.
Futures trading activity, the attorney noted, is easily tracked through exchanges like the CME. The DOJ has also been meeting with officials from the prediction markets, where other well timed bets are taking place, the source added.
“They know who to ask to get to the bottom of this issue,” she said.
But another securities lawyer who specializes in high-profile insider trading cases, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he’s heard nothing to indicate that the SEC’s interest in the matter is major, or that the DOJ is mounting an aggressive case..
“I would usually hear through the rumor mill that something is of significance, but it’s been silent,” the person said.
The SEC, of course, doesn’t comment on such matters, and it’s difficult to gauge its interest in anything from sources one step removed from the investigative process. A spokesman didn’t return a request for comment.
The SEC’s sister agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has front-line authority over the futures markets where many of the suspect trades took place, also declined to comment.
“The CFTC can’t comment on whether an investigation is happening or not,” said spokeswoman Brooke Nethercott.
Jay Clayton, the US Attorney for the Southern District, has been more outfront on cracking down on suspicious trading in these markets. He has publicly stated that his office is looking into the trades, though it’s unclear how far the inquiry has progressed.
On Thursday, he announced charges against Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was involved in the planning and execution of the operation to nab Maduro.
Van Dyke signed nondisclosure agreements but on Dec. 26, he allegedly created a Polymarket account and began trading on Maduro- and Venezuela-related markets.
Authorities said he took “yes” positions on various forms of the question whether the US would knock out Maduro by the end of January, betting about $33,034 total.
The White House has said in the past that “all federal employees are subject to government ethics guidelines that prohibit the use of nonpublic information for financial benefit. However, any implication that Administration officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting.”
Both Polymarket and the other major prediction venue, Kalshi, say they have rules barring insider trading that are strictly enforced.
A spokesman for Polymarket previously told On The Money: “Polymarket sets, maintains and enforces the highest standards of market integrity. We also proactively work with regulators and law enforcement to enforce those standards.”
A spokeswoman for Kalshi said insider trading and market manipulation are violations of Kalshi’s rules. “Kalshi bans insider trading and market manipulation,” the spokeswoman said.
Amid the regulatory scrutiny, Kalshi recently suspended three politicians for potentially using insider trading on their own campaigns.
As The Post has reported, Wall Street traders have been anticipating a clampdown.
In March, during what’s normally a lull in the markets, About 7,200 oil futures contracts betting on a decline in price changed hands with a value of $760 million, said veteran commodities trader Mike Khouw. Around the same time, he said, there was frenzied buying of S&P futures – 6,000 contracts with an underlying or “notional” value of $2 billion.
The trades were made just before president Trump signaled a pause on Iran attacks that sent stock futures soaring and oil prices plummeting. The resulting windfall was likely worth between $40 million and $50 million, sources told On The Money.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are said to be scrutinizing headline-grabbing wagers on prediction markets — and are examining whether they may have violated insider-trading laws, people close to the matter say.
Regulators have sophisticated surveillance tools that can track trades before market-moving events. One issue that often hampers any crackdown – and might account for the SEC’s seemingly more plodding approach than the DOJ’s – is that insider trading, broadly defined as buying and selling stock based on “material non-public information” – isn’t usually easy to prove outside of obvious cases known as classic insider trading where people like a CEO or, say, Army personnel have firsthand access to market moving information before it’s made public.
There is no specific guiding law per se, just court precedent. Likewise, recent court cases have made it more difficult to mount prosecutions, particularly the collecting of information that doesn’t involve out-and-out theft and when there is no money that changes hands between the tipper and the person making the trade.
In another twist, legal market intelligence software might be behind the stunning wagers, as opposed to insider knowledge. Experts say allegedly suspicious looking trades could be legal because they are part of a “mosaic” of information gleaned through completely legal sources and something additional — like a report in an obscure news source – that led to the activity.
While futures trading involves financial instruments – stocks, bonds and commodities – the prediction markets allow traders to wager bets on almost anything. Much of that volume is based on sports wagers, but an increasing segment of the betting markets involves Wall Street and the outcome of political events.
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