They missed out on $2 million because Maduro wasn't going to be home for the holidays

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The insider made seventy thousand through the military intelligence.

At 2:00 AM local time in Venezuela on Saturday, while President Nicolás Maduro was still deep in the dreamland of the New Year holiday, a raid by U.S. Special Forces concluded the battle within 1 hour and airlifted Maduro onto a transport plane bound for the United States.

This world-shocking "lightning raid" seemed to come out of nowhere, but on the prediction market leader platform Polymarket, it appeared to have been a cash-out tool for several insiders well before the operation.

3 Pentagon Employees "Betting While Working Overtime"

Hours before the operation began, three wallets with no prior history on Polymarket suddenly started feverishly betting on the highly improbable outcome of "Maduro is ousted by January 31, 2026."

At that time, the prevailing market sentiment still believed that Trump would pursue a mild siege strategy to force Maduro to compromise, with the probability of "yes" in this outcome standing at only 5%. However, as Maduro was airlifted, these three mysterious accounts instantly raked in over $500,000 in profit.

It wasn't until afterwards that everyone began to redefine the purchases made by the trio in the hours before the airstrike: only those with reliable insider information could execute a "dimensional strike" at such a precise time window using new accounts.

The three insiders are:

0xa72db1749e9ac2379d49a3c12708325ed17febd4, Profits $74,982.34;

0x6baf05d193692bb208d616709e27442c910a94c5, Profits $145,619.92;

0x31a56e9e690c621ed21de08cb559e9524cdb8ed9, Profits $409,882.03.

But the message Polymarket delivers to us goes far beyond these.

Maduro's "Flight Delay": U.S. Operation Should Have Taken Place 4 Days Earlier

There are two very illustrative addresses, which, although they profited from this action, lost a significant amount of money because they knew the news too early.

Like the aforementioned 3 insiders, Chiwawas also made a precise $10,000 bet 3 hours before this airstrike and thus made over $70,000 in profit.

However, Chiwawas had actually heavily bet nearly $40,000 on December 26th on the outcome of "Maduro is ousted by 2025."

Based on the premise that he was an insider, he must have received accurate information before placing a large bet. However, unfortunately, the arrest operation that was supposed to take place on December 29 was canceled due to weather conditions. A thunderstorm cluster in the Caribbean region forced the US military to call off the operation for tactical security reasons.

This point was also confirmed in Trump's latest remarks: "The airstrike against Maduro was scheduled to take place 4 days ago (i.e., the night of December 29, 2025, to the early hours of the 30th)."

Therefore, as the outcome settled on the last day of 2025 was "no" at the sportsbook, this transaction, along with the arrival of 2026, led to a significant loss in his account.

If everything had gone according to Chiwawas' plan, his account should have been settled for a whopping $750,000 on December 30.

Unfortunately, due to the unfavorable weather, not only did the thunderstorm cluster at sea disrupt the US military's planned airstrike, but it also shattered Chiwawas' dream of making a fortune during the Christmas holiday using military intelligence.

Fortunately, when he learned that the US military would resume the operation in the early hours of January 3, he rallied once again, recharged his account, and placed his bets. Although this final attempt could not make up for the regret of losing $750,000, it ultimately brought his overall account profit back into positive territory, reaching $34,000.

Chiwawas Address: 0x168b100d7a6620a2f49a455344c2c006eaf1714b

In addition to Chiwawas, another account also missed out on substantial profits due to weather conditions. Since the end of last month, he had been betting around $20,000 on various related outcomes such as "US-Venezuela military conflict within the year" and "Nothing happens: national leader loses power," being confident that the US-Venezuela conflict would occur in the remaining days of 2025, leading to Maduro's fall.

If not for the weather impact, he should have welcomed a massive $1.04 million profit on the 30th.

Like Chiwawas, he, too, after enduring a huge loss, bet on "US-Venezuela conflict to occur before 2026.1.15" 3 hours before the airstrike, and made a profit of over $40,000.

Conclusion

Only 3 days into 2026, and we have already seen Polymarket emerge not just as a prediction platform, but as an ATM for insiders across industries to exploit 'information asymmetry' and 'time arbitrage'.

As Polymarket's prominence continues to rise, who knows what magical insider stories will unfold here this year?