US President Donald Trump stated that the “leaker on Venezuela has been identified and is in custody” as certain Polymarket accounts associated with early wagers on Maduro’s removal cease activity.
Donald Trump, the President of the United States, declared that the “leaker on Venezuela” is now in jail. This has brought up questions about prediction markets again after a string of well-timed bets earlier this month.
According to a video posted by The Wall Street Journal, Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday, The leaker on Venezuela has been found and is in jail right now.
Trump didn’t say anything about prediction markets, but blockchain experts like Lookonchain have hypothesised that the leaker may be connected to a group of Polymarket accounts that made big bets on what would happen in Venezuela just hours before the news broke.
Source: WSJ
Blockchain analysts flag suspicious betting patterns
Lookonchain said in an X post on Thursday, “We saw that two of the three wallets that made money betting on Venezuelan President Maduro leaving office have been inactive for 11 days.”
Lookonchain pointed out the 0xa72DB1 Polymarket account, which turned a $5,800 wager on Maduro being out of power by January 31, 2026 into $75,000.
Lookonchain also talked about the 0x31a56e account, which made a lot of bets on events in Venezuela before going missing from Polymarket around January 8.
Lookonchain said that the other wallet, SBet365, made another wager two days ago, saying that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be removed from power by January 31.
SBet365 was another one of the accounts that made a lot of money betting on Venezuela on Polymarket, making almost $140,000 on bets related to Maduro’s removal.
Trump said, “There could be other leakers, and we will let you know,” referring to the jailed Venezuelan leaker.
Political and regulatory pressure mounts on prediction markets
The occurrences come at a time when prediction markets are still under close watch, and US politicians are proposing a bill to stop insider trading on political bets.
Sean Patrick Maloney, president and CEO of the Coalition for Prediction Markets, a national business group that was created in late 2025, noted that coalition members already stop insider trading by adopting stringent Know Your Customer procedures.
Offshore, unregistered platforms should not be able to operate in the US or serve US customers without the same safeguards and registrations, keeping this activity governed responsibly under US oversight.