President Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday that the individual responsible for leaking classified U.S. operations in Venezuela has been arrested, a development that coincides with the sudden silence of several high-rolling Polymarket accounts.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump stated the “leaker on Venezuela has been found and is in jail right now,” describing the suspect as a “very bad leaker” who would face significant time behind bars. The confirmation comes days after U.S. forces successfully detained former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro an event predicted with suspicious accuracy by anonymous bettors on the decentralized prediction market.
Blockchain analysts at Lookonchain flagged a cluster of wallets that placed concentrated bets on Maduro’s ouster just hours before the operation became public. One specific wallet, 0xa72DB1, turned a $5,800 stake into nearly $75,000. Another account, which netted over $400,000 on a $32,000 wager, has gone dormant since Jan. 8.
While the administration has not officially linked the arrest to the crypto bets, NBC News identified the suspect as Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a Navy veteran and government contractor charged with unlawful retention of national defense information.
The incident has triggered immediate regulatory blowback. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) announced the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, seeking to ban government officials from trading on prediction markets. Meanwhile, the remaining active wallet in the cluster, SBet365, has notably pivoted its wagers to the potential ouster of Iran’s Supreme Leader by month’s end.
Source:https://cryptonews.com/news/trump-jails-venezuela-leaker-polymarket-wallets/