By Dave Michaels
A Google software engineer allegedly earned $1.2 million by illegally trading contracts on Polymarket that allowed people to bet on who would be revealed as the most searched people of 2025, according to prosecutors.
Michele Spagnuolo was charged with fraud and money laundering over bets he allegedly made last year that were based on nonpublic search data Google restricts to "only a limited number of employees," according to a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday. The data revealed the most searched people at that time to be musicians Kendrick Lamar and d4vd, who both finished in the top 5, court records said.
The complaint, filed by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office, is the second insider-trading case that authorities have brought over trades on Polymarket, a popular betting platform that allows users to trade anonymously. The same office last month charged Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an Army special-forces soldier, with trading illegally on information he had learned about the U.S. military operation to remove former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Spagnuolo has been a Google employee since 2014 and is based in Zurich, according to his LinkedIn page. He has been placed on leave from his job, according to Google, which said it was cooperating with the government. He couldn't be reached for comment.
"The employee accessed our marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of our policies," a Google spokeswoman said.
Spagnuolo used the account name "AlphaRaccoon" on Polymarket and traded in large sums on the platform, according to the complaint. From October to December of last year, Spagnuolo allegedly wagered approximately $2.7 million on 25 bets tied to the Google Year in Search results.
At the time he bet on d4vd as the most searched person on Google, the odds of the singer placing that high were barely above 0%, the complaint said. D4vd, whose real name is David Burke, was charged last month with first-degree murder and sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl whose body was found last year in the trunk of a Tesla linked to the singer. He has pleaded not guilty.
Google's Year in Search data is commercially lucrative information that drives "substantial user traffic to Google's platforms," according to the complaint. It also generates media coverage and helps to boost advertising spending. Google, owned by Alphabet, earns most of its revenue from advertising.
Wagers on Polymarket are recorded on a public blockchain, allowing trades to be seen by others who use the platform. The bets that prosecutors attributed to Spagnuolo were identified by Polymarket watchers, who also found the same account earned more than $100,000 by correctly betting on the release date of Google's Gemini 3 AI model.
Some Polymarket watchers dubbed the trader the "Google insider" and suggested that the bets were based on nonpublic information.
News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply content on Google platforms.
Write to Dave Michaels at dave.michaels@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 27, 2026 17:44 ET (21:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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