NEW YORK — Michele Spagnuolo, a Google engineer, has been charged by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering for allegedly using confidential Google data to place bets on the prediction market Polymarket in late 2024. Spagnuolo was arrested on Wednesday and appeared before a federal judge in New York before being released on a $2.25 million bond.

According to court filings, Spagnuolo used internal Google marketing data to place $2.7 million in bets on Polymarket between October and December of last year, earning more than $1.2 million in profits. He allegedly traded under the account name AlphaRaccoon and placed wagers on who would be the most-searched person on Google in 2025, including a bet that singer D4vd would top the list despite Polymarket assigning near-zero probability to that outcome. At the time of the November bet, Spagnuolo had access to internal data showing D4vd had already become Google's most-searched person, according to the indictment. "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.

Spagnuolo also allegedly bet against Bianca Censori and former President Donald Trump being the most-searched person. After transferring his winnings from a cryptocurrency wallet, he removed the name AlphaRaccoon from his Polymarket account, court documents state. The FBI linked Spagnuolo to the account by tracing a cryptocurrency wallet he opened using an Italian identification card.

Google placed Spagnuolo on leave and is cooperating with law enforcement. "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.

Polymarket also worked with authorities on the investigation. "Blockchain trading is transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave footprints." said Olivia Chalos, Polymarket's chief legal officer.

The U.S. Attorney’s office conducted the investigation with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a parallel civil case against Spagnuolo for alleged violations of commodities law. Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen who lives in Switzerland and worked at Google for more than 12 years in information security, did not respond to requests for comment.