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U.S. prosecutors have charged Michele Spagnuolo, a Google software/security engineer, with insider trading after he allegedly used confidential Google data to win roughly $1.2 million trading on prediction market Polymarket.
According to a complaint unsealed in late May 2026, Spagnuolo ā who operated as āAlphaRaccoonā on the platform ā placed bets tied to Googleās 2025 Year in Search and other internal search-data insights between October and December 2025.
He was arrested in New York and faces criminal counts including commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a parallel civil complaint.
Google said the employee accessed marketing tools available internally, has been placed on leave, and is cooperating with authorities.
Polymarket said it worked with the U.S. Attorneyās Office and the CFTC and that blockchain transaction records helped trace the activity.
The case follows a recent arrest of a U.S. servicemember accused of similar wagering and has drawn fresh scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators over how prediction markets are monitored and policed.







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