A Google engineer used internal search data to bet $2.7m on Polymarket. The DOJ has charged him.
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Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have charged Michele Spagnuolo, a Google information-security engineer, with using internal Google search-trend data to place $2.7m in bets on Polymarket's 2025 Year-in-Search prediction market, netting $1.2m in profit. Trading under the alias 'AlphaRaccoon', Spagnuolo allegedly accessed non-public data via an internal Google tool to bet on outcomes including singer D4vd topping the Year-in-Search list — a near-zero probability bet that paid off. Charges include commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, with a parallel CFTC civil case. This is the second federal criminal case tied to Polymarket and the first involving misappropriated data from a major tech platform. The case comes amid growing regulatory pressure on prediction markets, including congressional probes and bans in Spain and India.
