US bombing in Venezuela made someone richer by $400,000 — Was this an insider trading? Explained
The user made a whopping $35,000 bet on Polymarket on these two things at a time market predictions of the US bombing in Venezuela was at a meagre 6%.
THE United States has carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela, and captured left-wing leader and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. But someone else in a different part of the world just made a profit of $400,000 due to the news, which traders suspect to be an insider trading.
According to a report by The News Republic, the ‘suspicious’ new user made money on the prediction market Polymarket.
According to the report by The News Republic, this mysterious account on Polymarket was created on December 27. Raising eyebrows further, it made bets on only two things — the US bombing in Venezuela, and the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro who it bet would be forced out of leadership by January 31.
The user made a whopping $35,000 bet on Polymarket on these two things at a time when market predictions of the US bombing in Venezuela were at a meagre 6%.
And thanks to the suspiciously lucky bets, the user made over $400,000 in less than one day.
According to Axios, other users too made similar bets and netted thousands of dollars, even though Maduro's capture came out of the blue for millions of people across the world.
The bets peaked on Friday night, hours before Trump made the announcement on early Saturday morning.
A Wall Street Journal report further says that the market for whether or not Maduro will be captured and forced out of power climbed shortly before 10pm ET on Friday, after it hovered around low single digits for weeks.
Axios reported that after Maduro's capture, the suspicious account in question made a total of $436,759.61 out of their bet.
The question of “Maduro in US custody by January 31?” shot up at 4:20 am ET after hovering at lows for weeks, coming around the same time as Trump's announcement of his extraction to the US.
Who is behind the bets?
The user who minted a huge amount of money remains anonymous, and Polymarket has not issued an official statement.
As per a report by CBS, military officials of the US had initially discussed bombing Venezuela on Christmas Day. However, they reversed the decision after zeroing in on carrying out the ISIS strikes in Nigeria instead.
While Trump and his officials kept quiet about the bombing in Venezuela, someone with insider knowledge of the bombing likely took advantage of the situation and made themselves hefty money.
