Bloomberg and analytics-firm reviews highlighted suspicious Iran- and Venezuela-linked trading, including a nine-wallet cluster with a 98% win rate, as Polymarket referred more than 90 accounts and nearly 100 wallets to authorities.
Polymarket said it strengthened insider-trading surveillance and referred more than 90 accounts, including nearly 100 suspicious wallets, to law enforcement as Bloomberg’s review of Polysights data found about $200 million in first-half 2026 trades showed traits associated with potential insider activity. Much of the flagged trading involved Iran- and Venezuela-linked markets, and analytics firms also identified a nine-wallet cluster that posted a 98% win rate and more than $2.4 million in profits on Iran-related contracts. The data and wallet referrals do not establish that each flagged trade was illegal, and referrals do not mean charges will follow. But public blockchain records have allowed investigators and analysts to trace wallet funding, concentrated positions and trades placed shortly before major events, even when users traded through pseudonymous addresses. Scrutiny intensified after the Department of Justice charged U.S. Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke on April 23, 2026, alleging he used classified information about a U.S. military operation targeting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to place Polymarket trades and made about $409,881, or roughly $410,000, after wagering more than $33,000. The CFTC, the U.S. derivatives regulator, filed a parallel case. In a separate matter, prosecutors and the CFTC charged Google engineer Michele Spagnuolo over allegations that he used confidential Google search trend data to place about $2.7 million in Polymarket wagers that authorities said produced about $1.2 million in profit. The widening probe comes as Polymarket’s geopolitics category exceeded $5 billion in year-to-date volume by mid-June 2026, with Iran-related contracts alone topping $2 billion in the first four months of the year. Polymarket said it has worked with Chainalysis to strengthen on-chain surveillance and provided over 315 wallet details to authorities, while media and congressional scrutiny expanded to questions around identity verification and anomaly detection.