Google Engineer Charged with Insider Trading on Polymarket

Google engineer charged with insider trading on prediction market

Michele Spagnuolo, a security engineer at Google, has been arrested and charged with insider trading related to Polymarket, a prediction market platform. U.S. authorities allege that he used confidential information from Google to place bets on trending search queries.

The charges were announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, indicating that Spagnuolo utilized internal Google tools to monitor search trends, specifically targeting who would be among the most-searched individuals in 2025. This activity occurred after Polymarket launched its betting markets last fall.

According to the complaint, Spagnuolo is accused of transferring around $3.8 million in USDC to his Polymarket wallet. Operating under the username "AlphaRaccoon," he allegedly placed a wager on rapper D4vd, who was recently implicated in a murder case, predicting he would become one of the most-searched individuals shortly thereafter. Spagnuolo reportedly accessed Google’s internal data that indicated D4vd's rising search interest just hours before making the bet.

In addition, the AlphaRaccoon account transferred 5 million USDC.e from Polymarket to a personal wallet, which then funneled the funds through a swapping service and privacy tool before some cash was sent to a payment processor in Italy, verified with Spagnuolo’s government ID.

The complaint highlights that Spagnuolo possessed knowledge of the outcomes of his trades before they became public due to his access to Google’s proprietary data. It claims he profited over $1.2 million from these trades while attempting to conceal the origins of his illegal gains.

Spagnuolo is facing serious charges, including commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. This case follows another significant arrest related to Polymarket, involving a U.S. Army soldier accused of insider trading linked to a raid involving Nicolas Maduro.