Did Someone Know Beforehand? Anonymous Trader Turns $34,000 Into $400,000 Betting on Nicolas Maduro’s Arrest Hours Before US Operation

An anonymous trader has sparked intense speculation after turning a $34,000 wager into nearly $400,000 on a crypto-based prediction platform by betting that Nicolas Maduro would be arrested and removed from power, just hours before a US military operation unfolded. 

The unusually timed and concentrated bets, placed when such an outcome was widely considered unlikely, have raised questions about whether the trader had more than just sharp instincts, prompting renewed scrutiny of prediction markets and the potential misuse of nonpublic information.

Did Trader Have Inside Information About US Operation?

An analysis of Polymarket data cited by The Wall Street Journal shows that the trader made close to $410,000 in profits after placing a string of bets in the days before a US military operation targeting the Venezuelan leader. 

Less than five hours before explosions were reported in Caracas, the trader significantly ramped up wagers predicting that Nicolas Maduro would no longer be in power by the end of January, an outcome that was widely considered unlikely at the time. 

How Did $96 Bet Turn into $410,000 Just Hours Before Maduro’s Capture?

According to data from Polymarket (which allows users to bet on a wide range of future events) the trader created an account last month and placed an initial $96 wager on December 27, betting that the United States would invade Venezuela by January 31. In the days that followed, the user steadily increased the size of the bets, concentrating on contracts that would pay out if Maduro was removed from power. 

The largest wagers were made between 8:38 pm and 9:58 pm Eastern Time on Friday, with over $20,000 staked in that short window. At 9:58 pm, the contracts were trading at around eight cents, suggesting the market assigned only an 8% probability to Maduro losing power before the month’s end.

Just hours later, reports emerged of a US operation to capture Maduro, sending the value of those contracts sharply higher. By the next morning, the trader began cashing out, ultimately pocketing nearly $410,000 from total bets of about $34,000, with more than half placed the night before the operation.

Are Insiders Exploiting Prediction Markets Using VPNs?

Polymarket officially bars users based in the United States from accessing its main platform, though some participants reportedly circumvent the ban using VPNs to mask their location.

The platform has drawn scrutiny before. In December, a trader operating under the username “0xafEe” reportedly made around $1.2 million from a string of highly accurate bets on Google’s most-searched individuals of 2025, according to Polymarket data. 

The same account had earlier earned over $100,000 by correctly predicting the release date of Gemini 3, prompting some users to speculate that the trades may have relied on nonpublic information.