Google Security Engineer Charged With Insider Trading on Polymarket Using Confidential Company Data

A Google security engineer is facing felony criminal charges for allegedly executing trades on prediction platform Polymarket using non-public internal information from the tech giant. Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Italian citizen, was arrested in New York earlier this morning, as first reported by ABC News.

Spagnuolo has been charged with one count each of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. He has been employed at Google since 2014, and was based out of the company’s Zurich, Switzerland offices.

According to the criminal complaint, Spagnuolo placed his unauthorized trades on Polymarket between roughly October 2025 and December 2025, using restricted internal Google data unavailable to the general public. In one high-stakes trade, he profited $1.2 million by correctly predicting that D4vd would top Google’s 2025 list of the year’s most-searched people. Once a little-known independent artist, D4vd became the subject of intense public attention after he was named a murder suspect, and was formally charged in the case last April.

“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,” FBI agent Brandon Racz wrote in the complaint.

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This arrest is only the second known U.S. arrest for illegal activity connected to prediction markets. Back in April, a U.S. Army Special Forces officer was taken into custody for allegedly placing bets on markets tied to the potential capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Both cases are being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Earlier this year, OpenAI terminated an employee for using insider information to trade on a prediction platform, but Spagnuolo’s arrest marks the first time a tech worker has been arrested for this type of alleged conduct.

On the evening after the criminal case was unsealed, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — the federal agency tasked with regulating prediction markets in the U.S. — announced it had filed a parallel civil complaint against Spagnuolo, also charging him with insider trading.

Polymarket has faced growing scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers over its reputation as a hub for unregulated, illegal activity. Last week, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer launched a formal investigation into insider trading on prediction market platforms, and issued a request for information from Polymarket detailing how the company vets its users. Polymarket operates two distinct versions of its platform: a smaller, regulated offering that is legal for U.S. users, and a much larger offshore version that is technically blocked for U.S. traders, where users place wagers using cryptocurrency.

“We’re working with law enforcement on their investigation. The employee accessed our internal marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of our policies. We’ve placed the employee on leave and will take the appropriate action,” Google spokesperson Jaclyn Vazquez said in a statement to WIRED.

“Polymarket worked closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the CFTC, and is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States,” Olivia Chalos, Polymarket's deputy chief legal officer, said in a statement to WIRED. “Blockchain trading is transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave clear footprints. We are committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets as well as enforcing our rules and working with our regulators and law enforcement.” In a separate social media post, Polymarket confirmed the arrest was the result of a referral the platform itself submitted to law enforcement.

All wallet transactions on Polymarket’s crypto-based platform are publicly visible, meaning anyone can trace trading activity on the platform. Spagnuolo allegedly placed his trades under the username AlphaRaccoon — an account that Polymarket community observers had long suspected belonged to a Google insider, due to the extremely low odds of correctly predicting all the outcomes he wagered on by chance.

Earlier this month, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig told WIRED that the agency is now using artificial intelligence tools to detect market manipulation and insider trading across the prediction market industry.

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Update 5/28/26 11:15am ET: This story has been updated to confirm that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has also filed charges against Michele Spagnuolo, and to correct the attribution of Polymarket’s official statement.