A Google engineer used internal search data to bet $2.7m on Polymarket. The DOJ has charged him.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged a 36-year-old Google information-security engineer in Switzerland with using internal Google search-trend data to trade on Polymarket. The engineer allegedly accessed non-public search-trend information through an internal Google tool and placed 25 separate bets under the handle “AlphaRaccoon.” The bets targeted outcomes tied to Google’s Year-in-Search results, including whether specific public figures would finish top. After Google announced the results on 4 December 2025, the engineer’s account profited $1.2m. Prosecutors allege the engineer then removed the handle and moved the winnings out of the associated cryptocurrency wallet. Charges include commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, with a parallel civil case by the CFTC.

"Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have charged Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Google information-security engineer based in Switzerland, with using internal Google search-trend data to bet $2.7m on Polymarket and profit $1.2m on the prediction-market platform's 2025 Google Year-in-Search contracts."

"Spagnuolo, prosecutors allege, used an internal Google tool to access non-public search-trend data and then placed 25 separate bets on the market under an account named "AlphaRaccoon." He bet nearly $1m that Kanye West's wife Bianca Censori would not finish top, more than $600,000 that Pope Leo XIV would not finish top, and a meaningful position on the singer D4vd to finish top at a price Polymarket had set at near-zero probability."

"D4vd won when Google announced the results on 4 December 2025. Spagnuolo's AlphaRaccoon account profited $1.2m. He subsequently removed the AlphaRaccoon name from his Polymarket account and moved his winnings out of the associated cryptocurrency wallet."

"The charges are commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has brought a parallel civil case. The SDNY filing, supported by the FBI investigation, is the most concrete public application yet of US securities-style insider-trading law to a prediction-market trade."

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