Prosecutors said Michele Spagnuolo used confidential Google Trends data to place winning bets before the information became public.
WASHINGTON – A Google software engineer has been arrested charged He was charged with insider trading and fraud after federal prosecutors accused him of using confidential company data to make more than $1.2 million in bets on prediction markets related to Google search trends.
Federal prosecutors in New York said Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Italian citizen living in Switzerland, faces charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
according to complainSpagnuolo allegedly used confidential internal Google data to conduct profitable trades on Polymarket under the username “AlphaRaccoon.”
Prosecutors said Spagnuolo worked as a software engineer at Google and had access to internal systems that contained nonpublic company information. Authorities claim he used that access to place bets related to Google search trends before the information became public.
“Today’s charges reinforce a message that went back decades: corporate insiders cannot exploit confidential business information to profit in our markets,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement released by the Justice Department.
The complaint alleges that Spagnuolo conducted approximately $2.75 million in transactions related to Google-related information between October and December 2025, and earned approximately $1.2 million in profits after the information was made public and the market was resolved.
Prosecutors allege that Spagnuolo correctly bet that singer D4vd would be the most searched person of the year on Google in 2025, even though prediction markets initially assigned a “near-zero probability” to that outcome, NBC News reported.
“Unlike his counterparties, Spagnulo knew the outcome of these bets before they were made public because he had access to Google’s confidential, commercially valuable internal data,” the complaint states.
The Justice Department said Spagnuolo had acknowledged Google’s confidentiality and ethics policies and that some of the internal systems he accessed displayed “Google Confidential” warnings.
A Google spokesperson told nbc news The company is cooperating with investigators.
“The employee accessed our marketing materials using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious violation of our policies,” the spokesperson said, according to NBC News, adding that the employee has been placed on leave.
A spokesperson for Polymarket told NBC News that the company is cooperating with investigators and said it is “committed to maintaining an accurate, fair and transparent marketplace.”
The charges are the second major criminal case this year involving alleged insider trading at Polymarket. Earlier this year, federal prosecutors charged a U.S. Special Forces soldier with allegedly using classified information to make bets related to Venezuela.
If convicted, Spagnuolo faces up to 10 years in prison on the commodities fraud count and up to 20 years in prison on the wire fraud and money laundering counts.
