A Google security engineer was charged with insider trading after winning $1.2 million using confidential company data to place bets on the cryptocurrency-based Polymarket decentralized prediction market.
36-year-old Michele Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland and a Google employee since 2014, appeared on Wednesday in the Southern District of New York.
In parallel, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a separate civil complaint the same day, seeking restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, and trading and registration bans.
According to the criminal complaint, throughout this scheme, Spagnuolo used his access to an internal software tool containing confidential "Year in Search" data (Google's annual ranking of top trending search terms), which was marked with a "Google Confidential" banner in red text.
Beginning in October 2025, Spagnuolo allegedly used a Polymarket account under the alias "AlphaRaccoon" to bet on whether specific individuals would appear on Google's top trending search lists. He also allegedly used confidential data from Google's internal data tool and placed bets with near-perfect accuracy across approximately 25 unlikely outcomes, while risking roughly $2.75 million in total.
