DOJ charges Google staffer over Polymarket trades netting $1.2 million
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An aerial view shows Google's "Googleplex" corporate office in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2026.
Key facts
In all, according to prosecutors, Spagnuolo bet $2.7 million on 25 separate outcomes in the Google search market, netting $1.2 million in profit
He bet nearly $1 million that Kanye West's wife, Bianca Censori, would not be the most-Googled person
An aerial view shows Google's "Googleplex" corporate office in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2026
$1.15M profit in 24 hours trading Google search markets
Summary
A Google software engineer has been charged with using confidential company information to make $1.2 million on Polymarket, in the second known federal criminal case connected to lucrative trades on a prediction market site. Michele Spagnuolo, 36, an Italian citizen who lives in Switzerland, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and other counts for allegedly placing bets on search trends based on internal Google data that tracked user searches. "Unlike the counterparties to his trades, Spagnuolo knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google's confidential, commercially valuable internal data," according to the federal indictment, which authorities unsealed on Wednesday. Prosecutors say Spagnuolo, operating under the username AlphaRaccoon, placed several wagers on Google's most-searched person of 2025.