A Google engineer, Michele Spagnuolo, has been charged with fraud, money laundering, commodities fraud, and wire fraud for allegedly making $1.2 million on Polymarket using insider information about Google’s search trends.
Spagnuolo allegedly accessed confidential Year in Search data to bet on the most searched person, d4vd, and profited significantly after the public announcement. Google has placed him on leave and is cooperating with law enforcement.
Google Engineer Accused of $1.2M Insider Trading Scheme on Polymarket Using Confidential Search Data
A Google employee has been charged with fraud for allegedly exploiting non-public information to make over $1 million on prediction market bets.
Key Points
- Federal prosecutors charged a Google employee with fraud on Wednesday, alleging that he made $1.2 million from bets on Polymarket that used insider information.
- The employee, Michele Spagnuolo, has been charged with money laundering, commodities fraud and wire fraud, according to the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York.
- Google said it’s working with law enforcement and that Spagnuolo has been placed on leave.
Federal prosecutors have charged a Google employee with fraud, alleging he profited $1.2 million through bets on the Polymarket platform using confidential insider information. Michele Spagnuolo, identified as a staff information security engineer at Google, is accused of leveraging non-public details about Google's Year in Search data to correctly predict that the singer d4vd would be the most searched person in 2025.
Spagnuolo faces charges of money laundering, commodities fraud, and wire fraud. The complaint, unsealed in the Southern District of New York, details how Spagnuolo allegedly accessed a Google internal software tool that provided him with confidential, nonpublic Year in Search data. Some observers of Polymarket had previously flagged the user "AlphaRaccoon" in December for suspicious trading activity on contracts related to the most searched person, and the complaint confirms Spagnuolo was behind this account.
The complaint states that Spagnuolo's AlphaRaccoon account profited approximately $1.2 million shortly after Google publicly announced its Year in Search 2025 results around December 4, 2025. Spagnuolo was arrested in New York and subsequently appeared before a federal magistrate judge, where he did not enter a plea. He was released on a $2.25 million bond.
Google has stated it is cooperating with law enforcement and has placed the employee on leave. A company spokesperson emphasized that while the employee accessed marketing materials through a tool available to all staff, using confidential information for bets constitutes a serious breach of company policies. Polymarket has also confirmed its cooperation with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the CFTC, highlighting its role in this insider trading investigation.
In addition to the federal charges, Spagnuolo is also facing a civil lawsuit from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for insider trading. The CFTC complaint further alleges that Spagnuolo correctly predicted the outcomes of numerous other search markets, including contracts related to "Will Zohran Mamdani rank in the Top 5 most searched" and "Will Squid Game be the #1 searched TV show." The CFTC asserts that Spagnuolo misappropriated confidential information in breach of his duties.
This case marks the second significant insider trading accusation on Polymarket in recent weeks. Previously, U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested in April for allegedly using classified information to bet on contracts concerning the U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, reportedly making over $400,000 from those trades.
