Google Engineer Arrested Over Alleged $1.2 Million Insider Betting Scheme

A Google engineer has been arrested and charged in the United States for allegedly making profitable bets on prediction market platform Polymarket using confidential information from the company. The engineer is accused of making more than $1.2 million from insider knowledge.

Michele Spagnuolo is accused of using non-public information he received through his job at Google to place successful bets on events associated with the company, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York says.

Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, was arrested Wednesday and appeared before a federal judge in New York, BBC reported.

Also Read: Meta Plans AI Pendant Test As Wearables Strategy Expands

Google Policy Violation:

Prosecutors say he received internal Google information before it was public and used it to place bets on Polymarket, a cryptocurrency-based prediction market platform.

Google said it is cooperating with law enforcement agencies investigating the incident.

A company spokesman said the employee had been put on leave, calling the alleged behaviour a serious violation of company policies.

Google said the information was marketing material and could be accessed through internal employee tools.

The systems were accessible to staff, but the company said staff were not allowed to use confidential information for personal financial gain.

Polymarket said it also had cooperated with investigators.

“Blockchain transactions leave transparent and traceable records that may help identify suspicious activity,” a spokesperson for the platform said.

The investigation was carried out by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Spagnuolo has been released on a $2.25 million bond pending further proceedings, reports say.

He traded under the Polymarket username “AlphaRaccoon” and a number of cryptocurrency wallets, authorities said, but investigators were able to trace the activity back to him through an account opened with an Italian national ID.

Also Read: Delhi High Court Restrains Google From Using Hindware Trademark As Ad Keyword

$1 Million Profit:

Spagnuolo began using Polymarket in 2024 and bet around $2.7 million on Google between October and December last year, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said he made more than $1 million in profit from the bets because he had information that had not been released to the public.

“The bets on Google search trends in prediction markets were among the most profitable.

Court documents allege that Spagnuolo was able to accurately predict which public figures would and would not be among Google’s most searched-for personalities in 2025.

One of the main accusations concerns a musician known as D4vd, who, according to prosecutors, Spagnuolo pushed as the eventual top search trend, even though the chances of that happening were extremely slim at the time.

Investigators say he had prior knowledge of the outcome of the bet via access to internal search data at Google before it was public.