Google software engineer has been charged by US federal prosecutors with alleged insider trading after reportedly using confidential internal search data to generate more than US$1.2 million in profits through the prediction market platform Polymarket.
The allegations were disclosed in a federal court filing unsealed in New York this week. Prosecutors identified the defendant as Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Italian national living in Switzerland who has worked as a software engineer at Google since 2014.
According to the complaint, Spagnuolo allegedly used a pseudonymous online account named AlphaRaccoon to place bets on Polymarket based on non-public information drawn from Google’s internal “Year in Search 2025” data before it was officially released.
Federal prosecutors said the conduct amounted to a clear abuse of confidential corporate information for personal financial gain.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said the case reinforced long-standing rules on market integrity.
“This week’s allegations reinforce a message that has been in place for decades: corporate insiders must not use confidential business information to profit in our markets,” Clayton said, according to the Associated Press.
He added that insider trading undermines trust in financial systems and said such behavior driven by greed should be investigated and prosecuted.
Court documents allege that Spagnuolo conducted trades on Polymarket between October and December 2025, coinciding with the development of Google’s internal search trend data.
One early bet reportedly involved predicting that rapper Kendrick Lamar would be the most searched public figure of the year following his performance at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show.
However, when internal data suggested that alt-pop artist D4vd was leading search trends instead, Spagnuolo allegedly adjusted his positions to capitalize on the revised information.
He is also accused of placing multiple yes-or-no bets on which public figures would appear in Google’s 2025 trending list.
Once the official Year in Search results were published on 4 December, the AlphaRaccoon account reportedly generated significant profits from the wagers.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation later traced cryptocurrency payment flows linked to the account back to Spagnuolo, according to investigators.
The case has drawn attention to the growing risks of prediction markets, where traders increasingly attempt to monetize sensitive or early-access data from major technology platforms.
