A Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) software engineer has been charged in the United States (US) with insider trading after allegedly using confidential company data to make more than $1.2m (£885,000) through bets on the prediction market platform Polymarket.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Italian citizen based in Switzerland, accessed non-public Google information and used it to place profitable wagers under the online alias “AlphaRaccoon”. He faces charges including commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
What is Polymarket
Polymarket is a blockchain-based prediction market where users bet on real-world events such as elections, sports, crypto prices, and global affairs, using stablecoins like USDC. It is one of the largest decentralized platforms of its kind, often described as a “global truth machine.”
Confidential data exploitation
According to court filings, Spagnuolo allegedly used internal Google search trend data to predict outcomes tied to the company’s annual “Year in Search” rankings before the information became public. Prosecutors said he placed roughly $2.7m in bets between October and December 2025 and generated illicit profits exceeding $1.2m.
Authorities said some of the wagers involved predicting which public figures would dominate Google searches, including rapper Kendrick Lamar and musician D4vd. Online users reportedly grew suspicious after the AlphaRaccoon account repeatedly made unusually accurate predictions on Polymarket.
The US attorney for the southern district of New York, Jay Clayton, said the case showed that “corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets”. Google said Spagnuolo had been placed on leave and that the company was cooperating with investigators.
The case is likely to intensify scrutiny of prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi, which have rapidly expanded in popularity while facing growing criticism over the potential for insider trading and market manipulation. It follows another recent prosecution involving a US soldier accused of profiting from bets linked to a covert operation in Venezuela.
