- Google engineer made $1.2M on Polymarket using confidential search data as AlphaRaccoon.
- Spagnuolo risked $2.75M across 23 prediction markets with near-perfect accuracy in late 2025.
- Charges carry a combined maximum of 50 years covering fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
A Google software engineer has been charged with insider trading after allegedly using confidential company data to place a series of profitable bets on Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market platform.
Michele Spagnuolo, 36, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, was presented before a US federal magistrate judge in New York on May 27 after the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed a criminal complaint.
Spagnuolo is also facing a parallel civil enforcement action from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which filed its own complaint on the same day.
What He Allegedly Did
According to federal prosecutors and the CFTC, the scheme ran from October to December 2025 and exploited Spagnuolo’s privileged access to Google’s internal data systems:
- Spagnuolo had access to an internal Google software tool marked with a «Google Confidential» banner in red text
- He had signed and certified his understanding of Google’s confidentiality and ethics policies
- He created a Polymarket account in May 2024 under the alias AlphaRaccoon
- Between October 15 and December 4, 2025, he risked approximately $2.75 million across prediction markets tied to Google’s internal data
- He traded on at least 23 markets related to Google’s official 2025 Year in Search list, including who would be the most searched person and the top five most searched people
- His accuracy was described as near-perfect, generating approximately $1.2 million in profits
- Once Google publicly announced the Year in Search results and the markets resolved, AlphaRaccoon collected the winnings
The Charges and Potential Penalties
Spagnuolo faces three separate criminal counts:
- Commodities fraud under the Commodity Exchange Act: maximum 10 years in prison
- Wire fraud: maximum 20 years in prison
- Money laundering: maximum 20 years in prison
The CFTC’s civil complaint separately seeks restitution, disgorgement of profits, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations.
Why This Case Matters Beyond the Individual
The Spagnuolo case is the second high-profile insider trading prosecution specifically involving a prediction market platform. It arrives at a moment when the CFTC is actively defending its exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets against state-level challenges, and when President Trump has publicly backed the agency’s authority in this space.
Related: U.S. Soldier Accused of Using Classified Intel to Win $400K on Polymarket
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