Federal prosecutors charged a Google employee with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, alleging confidential data was used to trade on Polymarket prediction markets.
Michele Spagnuolo, a staff software engineer at Google who used the alias “AlphaRaccoon,” allegedly bet about $2.75 million across Google-related Polymarket contracts from October 15 to December 4 last year, the U.S
Department of Justice disclosed Wednesday. Spanuolo allegedly won about $1.2 million from the predictions. Spagnuolo allegedly had access to a Google internal software tool that provided access to “confidential, nonpublic Year in Search data” and bore a “Google Confidential” banner, the DOJ’s criminal complaint reads.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has also filed a parallel civil complaint, alleging Spagnuolo violated the Commodity Exchange Act and seeking restitution, disgorgement, civil penalties, trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction. The case is the second federal prosecution tied to alleged prediction market insider trading.