Google engineer charged with insider trading after making $1.2M on Polymarket

The U.S. Justice Department charged Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo with insider trading. The department alleges that Spagnuolo made 1.2 million dollars trading on Polymarket based on confidential business information. Spagnuolo used the name AlphaRaccoon on Polymarket and has worked at Google for over 12 years. As alleged, Spagnuolo violated the duties he owed to his employer and used Googles confidential business information to make more than 1.2 million dollars in trading profits on Polymarket, Jay Clayton, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a press release. Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted, Clayton said. According to the complaint, Spagnuolo risked over 2.7 million dollars on wagers related to Googles 2025 Year in Search, a marketing campaign in which Google reveals the worlds most popular searches of the year. Spagnuolo allegedly accessed confidential, internal Google Search data about the most-searched celebrities to inform his bets. A Polymarket spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company worked closely with the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York and the CFTC. Polymarket is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States, the spokesperson said. We are committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets as well as enforcing our rules and working with our regulators and law enforcement, the spokesperson said. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch the company is working with law enforcement on its investigation. 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, Google said in an emailed statement. We have placed the employee on leave and will take the appropriate action, the company said.