Google Engineer Charged with Insider Trading on Polymarket, Profits Over $1.2 Million

Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old software engineer at Google, was arrested in New York and charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering for allegedly using confidential internal data to make over $1.2 million in bets on the prediction market platform Polymarket. The federal complaint, unsealed Wednesday in New York City, accuses Spagnuolo of placing wagers from October to December 2023 based on Google’s internal search data, which tracked the most-searched people for the year 2025 before the information was made public.

Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, used the Polymarket username “AlphaRacoon” to bet that D4vd, a singer who gained national attention after a 15-year-old girl’s body was found in a car registered to him, would be the most-searched person on Google in 2025. At the time of the bets, Polymarket assigned a near-zero probability to this outcome. After the official release of Google’s Year in Search report confirming D4vd as the top-searched individual, Spagnuolo allegedly transferred millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from his Polymarket account to a crypto wallet.

According to the complaint, “Unlike the counterparties to his trades, Spagnuolo knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google’s confidential, commercially valuable internal data.” The complaint also states that he took deliberate steps to conceal the source and ownership of his unlawful proceeds.

A Google spokesperson confirmed that Spagnuolo accessed marketing material through a tool available to all employees but emphasized that using such confidential information for betting is a serious policy breach. The employee has since been placed on leave, and Google is cooperating with law enforcement.

Polymarket also issued a statement highlighting its cooperation with federal authorities, noting it is “the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States.” The company stressed its commitment to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets and enforcing its rules against misconduct.

This case marks the second significant insider trading prosecution involving Polymarket users in recent months. In April, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a U.S. Special Forces soldier, was arrested and charged with using classified information about a raid to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro to place bets on Polymarket. Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty.

Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, condemned the insider trading as “greed-driven” and said it “compromises the integrity of our markets.” He reiterated that corporate insiders cannot legally use confidential business information to profit in the markets.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has also filed a civil lawsuit against Spagnuolo on similar grounds. Spagnuolo was released on a $2.25 million bond following his court appearance. Efforts to reach Spagnuolo and his attorney for comment have not been successful.