A Google software engineer, Michele Spagnuolo, was arrested and charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Prosecutors allege he used confidential Google information about user searches to place Polymarket wagers before the public could know the results. The indictment says he bet that D4vd would be the most-searched person in 2025 when many traders assigned near-zero probability. Authorities claim he accessed internal marketing material using a tool available to employees, then transferred winnings out of a cryptocurrency wallet and removed his Polymarket username. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also filed a civil case alleging violations of commodities law. Google said he is on leave and that the conduct breached company policies.
"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 a wager that Google's most-searched person in 2025 would be the rapper known as D4vd, just when most Polymarket traders assigned near-zero probability to the singer, who has been charged with murder, being the No. 1 most-Googled person last year."
"The charging documents say once Spagnuolo transferred his winnings out of his cryptocurrency wallet, he removed the name AlphaRaccoon from his Polymarket account. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought a separate civil case against Spagnuolo for allegedly violating commodities law."
""The employee accessed our marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of our policies," said Google spokesperson Jaclyn Vazquez. Google said in a statement that the company cooperated in the federal government's investigation into Spagnuolo, who has been placed on leave."
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]