Mystery trader garners $400,000-plus windfall on Maduro's capture

NEW YORK: An unknown trader has raked in a profit worth about $410,000 after betting that Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro would be ousted from his position.

The trader’s account on Polymarket built up positions in contracts tied to Maduro’s removal on terms that implied long odds before the weekend raid. Those wagers, which were worth about $34,000 prior to Maduro’s capture, surged in value after news of the U.S. military operation on the Venezuelan leader emerged, Polymarket data shows.

Major stock indexes jumped, and oil prices gained earlier on Monday, while energy shares notched big gains after Maduro was captured by the U.S. military during the weekend. The country’s default-hit government bonds surged, buoyed by expectations of a large and complex sovereign debt restructuring.

Bonds issued by the government and state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, jumped as much as 10 cents on the dollar, or almost 30%, as bullish investors swooped on the developments.

The mystery trade is likely to attract scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers who have been pushing for stricter insider trading rules, including a bipartisan effort to potentially ban trading of stocks by lawmakers.

After news of the Maduro trades emerged on Monday, Democratic congressman Ritchie Torres said he plans to introduce a bill this week that would bar elected officials, lawmakers, and federal employees from placing bets on prediction market platforms where they could potentially access material non-public information.

The anonymous account was created last month, with the trader buying up $96 worth of contracts on December 27 that would pay off if the U.S. invaded Venezuela by January 31. The trader then made several more similar bets in the following days.

Prediction markets like Polymarket offer tradable yes-or-no contracts that allow users to bet on a wide range of real-world events, ranging from outcomes across sports, entertainment, politics and the economy. When a contract priced at a few cents pays out at $1, traders who have access to non-public information tied to such contracts can rake in massive profits within hours or days.

In September, Polymarket secured approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to relaunch its operations in the country, following its $112 million acquisition of QCEX, a CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange and clearinghouse. The CFTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it was looking into trades related to Maduro’s capture.

Polymarket has previously faced scrutiny on potential insider trading on the platform. While Americans at present do not have access to the main betting platform, many traders use VPNs to get around the ban.

Polymarket did not immediately respond to a request for comment.