{"id":359,"date":"2026-05-28T04:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T04:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=359"},"modified":"2026-05-28T04:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T04:16:16","slug":"google-engineer-made-1-2m-by-placing-bets-on-polymarket-using-confidential-info-prosecutors-allege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=359","title":{"rendered":"Google engineer made $1.2M by placing bets on Polymarket using confidential info, prosecutors allege"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Google software engineer was accused Wednesday of using confidential company information to make over $1.2 million on Polymarket in the second significant criminal case tied to trades on the prediction market platform. <\/p>\n

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Michele Spagnulo, 36, an Italian citizen living in Switzerland, is charged with one count each of commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, according to a federal complaint unsealed in New York City. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Prosecutors accuse Spagnulo of placing a series of bets from October to December based on internal Google search data that tracked user searches. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike the counterparties to his trades, Spagnulo knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google\u2019s confidential, commercially valuable internal data,\u201d the complaint alleges. <\/p>\n

Spagnulo did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Spagnulo, under the username \u201cAlphaRacoon,\u201d earned over $1.2 million after he correctly wagered that D4vd, the singer accused of killing a teenage girl, would be Google\u2019s most-searched person of the year in 2025, court documents show. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

When Spagnulo bet on D4vd, the prediction market \u201cassigned a near-zero probability\u201d to the singer\u2019s being the top-searched person on Google, prosecutors wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce he won, Spagnulo then took deliberate steps to conceal his unlawful use of nonpublic information by attempting to obscure the source and ownership of his unlawful proceeds,\u201d according to the complaint. <\/p>\n

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A Google spokesperson said the company is cooperating with law enforcement. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the employee has since been placed on leave. <\/p>\n

A Polymarket spokesperson said in a statement that it is the \u201conly prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets as well as enforcing our rules and working with our regulators and law enforcement,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

In April, federal authorities arrested and charged a U.S. Special Forces soldier with using classified information about the raid that removed Venezuela\u2019s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from office to make Polymarket bets. The soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. <\/p>\n

In a statement Wednesday, Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, derided \u201cgreed-driven\u201d insider trading, saying it \u201ccompromises the integrity of our markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s charges reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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A Google software engineer was accused Wednesday of using confidential company information to make over $1.2 million on Polymarket in the second significant criminal case tied to trades on the prediction market platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-news"],"yoast_head":"\nGoogle engineer made $1.2M by placing bets on Polymarket using confidential info, prosecutors allege - Trusted Moving Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=359\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Google engineer made $1.2M by placing bets on Polymarket using confidential info, prosecutors allege - 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