A Google software engineer was arrested after federal prosecutors accused him of using non-public company data to win $1.2 million betting on Polymarket. The case is one of the first federal insider trading prosecutions targeting a decentralized prediction market.
Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old engineer at Google, was taken into custody on May 27 after a federal complaint was unsealed in the Southern District of New York. He faces charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. He was released on a $2.25 million bond.
How the scheme allegedly worked
Between roughly October and December 2025, Spagnuolo purportedly made 16 large wagers on Polymarket using internal, non-public data related to Google’s “Year in Search 2025” report. Google publicly released its annual search results on December 4, 2025. After those results went live, Spagnuolo’s positions reportedly paid off to the tune of $1.2 million in profits.
Among his bets was a prediction that d4vd, the rising artist, would be named the top-searched person of 2025.
