Google Engineer Used Internal Search Data for $1M+ Polymarket Trades

Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Italian citizen and Google security engineer who has worked at the company since 2014 and was based in its Zurich offices, was arrested in New York and charged with one count each of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.

Federal prosecutors allege that from October 2025 to December 2025 he used Google internal marketing data to place trades on Polymarket and made more than $1 million, including one trade that netted $1.2 million by correctly predicting the winner of Google’s most-searched person of the year for 2025.

According to the criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent, the trades were placed through an account using the username AlphaRaccoon. The complaint states that Spagnuolo “knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google’s confidential, commercially valuable internal data.”

A Google spokesperson said the employee accessed marketing material using a tool available to all employees. The spokesperson added that using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of company policies and that the employee has been placed on leave.

A Polymarket spokesperson said the platform worked closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The spokesperson stated that the arrest resulted from a referral the platform made to authorities and that blockchain trading leaves traceable records.

The same sources note that an earlier case involved a U.S. Army special forces officer charged with placing bets related to the capture of a foreign leader. Both matters were brought by the Southern District of New York.