A Google employee was charged with fraud by U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday for allegedly using insider information to place bets on the Polymarket website, profiting $1.2 million.
Prosecutors stated that Google information security engineer Michele Spagnuolo utilized confidential data to successfully bet that singer d4vd would be the most-searched person on Google in 2025.
Spagnuolo was arrested on Wednesday morning in New York. According to an indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, he faces charges of money laundering, commodities fraud, and wire fraud.
The indictment alleges that "Spagnuolo had access to Google's internal data systems, including a specific Google internal software tool that allowed him to obtain confidential, non-public 'Year in Search' data."
As early as last December, some observers on the Polymarket platform noticed suspicious trading on the most-searched person contract by a user named "AlphaRaccoon." The indictment released Wednesday states that Spagnuolo was behind this account.
The indictment further claims, "Google officially and publicly announced its 2025 Year in Search rankings around December 4, 2025. Shortly thereafter, Spagnuolo's AlphaRaccoon account profited approximately $1.2 million from bets related to Google's 2025 Year in Search rankings."
Spagnuolo appeared before a federal magistrate judge on Wednesday. He did not enter a plea and was released on a $2.25 million bond.
Google stated in a declaration, "We are cooperating with the law enforcement investigation. The employee accessed our marketing materials using a tool available to all employees; however, using such confidential information for betting is a serious violation of our policies."
The company added, "We have suspended the employee and will take appropriate follow-up action."
According to records in the federal court filing system, Spagnuolo also faces a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
This is the second high-profile insider trading case on the Polymarket platform within just over a month.
In April of this year, then-active-duty U.S. Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested for allegedly using confidential information to speculate on contracts related to a U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Prosecutors stated Van Dyke profited over $400,000 from these trades.
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