Google Engineer Arrested For Using Company’s Own Search Data To Win $1.2 Million On Polymarket

A Google info safety engineer has been arrested and charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and cash laundering after allegedly utilizing confidential inside firm information to put a sequence of bets on Polymarket — the crypto-based prediction market platform — profitable roughly $1.2 million by understanding the outcomes of his wagers earlier than the buying and selling public did.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed the criticism towards Michele Spagnuolo, 36 — additionally identified by his Polymarket account alias “AlphaRaccoon” — on May 27, 2026. Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, was arrested in New York and appeared earlier than US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, the place he was launched on a $2.25 million bond secured by $1 million in money, per the DOJ’s official assertion. He didn’t enter a plea.

How The Scheme Worked

According to the unsealed complaint, Spagnuolo had entry to an inside Google software program software — bearing a banner marked “Google Confidential” in purple textual content — that supplied real-time visibility into what customers had been looking out throughout Google’s platform, together with information that fed immediately into Google’s annual “Year in Search” rankings, per the DOJ submitting.

Beginning in May 2024, Spagnuolo created a Polymarket account and started inserting bets on contracts tied to which people would rank on Google’s most-searched record for 2025 — markets Polymarket launched final fall, per the criticism.

Prosecutors allege Spagnuolo transferred roughly $3.8 million in USDC to his Polymarket handle and positioned bets together with a $381.12 “sure” wager that the artist d4vd would rank in Google’s most-searched record and appropriately predicted contracts similar to “Will Zohran Mamdani rank within the Top 5 most searched” and “Will Squid Game be the primary searched TV present,” per CNBC’s reporting of the criticism. His success price throughout these markets was, in line with the criticism, no accident. He knew the solutions earlier than the markets settled.

The CFTC filed a simultaneous civil case towards Spagnuolo in search of financial disgorgement, restitution, and extra penalties, per the criticism. Google confirmed it had positioned Spagnuolo on go away and was cooperating with legislation enforcement — noting that the software he used was technically accessible to all staff, however that utilizing confidential info to put bets represented a critical breach of firm coverage, per an announcement reported by ABC News.

The Second Case In Thirty Days

The Spagnuolo arrest is the second federal felony case tied to Polymarket insider buying and selling in simply over a month. In April 2026, US Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested for allegedly utilizing categorised navy data of the deliberate seize of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to put bets on Polymarket, reportedly netting greater than $400,000. Van Dyke has pleaded not responsible, per CNN’s reporting.

Polymarket’s chief authorized officer Olivia Chalos stated in an announcement that the corporate labored carefully with the US Attorney’s Office and the CFTC on the Spagnuolo case — noting that Polymarket is the one prediction platform thus far whose cooperation has led to insider buying and selling expenses within the United States, and that the blockchain-based nature of the platform means unhealthy actors go away footprints.

This growth marks a important and accelerating second for the nascent prediction market sector. Two federal insider buying and selling arrests in thirty days — one involving navy categorised info, the opposite company search information — arriving concurrently with an lively congressional investigation into Polymarket and Kalshi, confirms that the authorized perimeter round prediction markets is closing quick. The transparency of blockchain buying and selling, as soon as seen primarily as a characteristic for customers, is now functioning as a forensic path for federal prosecutors.

Cover picture from Grok, ETHUSD chart from Tradingview