A 12-year Google veteran allegedly used confidential “Year in Search” data to place millions in bets on Polymarket — trading under the alias “AlphaRaccoon” before federal agents closed in.
By IDEA Television News Desk
A Google software engineer has been charged by US federal prosecutors with insider trading after allegedly using confidential company data to rake in over $1.2 million on the cryptocurrency-based prediction market platform Polymarket — marking one of the most unusual fraud cases to emerge from the growing world of online betting markets.
Michele Spagnuolo, 36, an Italian citizen living in Switzerland, was arrested in New York on Wednesday and appeared before a federal magistrate judge on charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. He did not enter a plea and was released on a $2.25 million bond, with $1 million secured in cash.
The “AlphaRaccoon” scheme
Prosecutors allege that Spagnuolo — who worked at Google for over 12 years as a staff information security engineer — exploited his internal access to the tech giant’s confidential “Year in Search” data, a closely guarded marketing campaign that reveals the world’s most popular search terms at the end of each year.
Using the alias AlphaRaccoon on Polymarket, he allegedly placed $2.7 million across 25 separate bets related to Google’s 2025 Year in Search results, beginning in October and running through December 2025. Because he knew the outcomes before they were made public, prosecutors say he held a decisive edge over every other trader on the platform.
“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.”
— Federal indictment, unsealed Wednesday, Southern District of New York
Among his most striking bets, Spagnuolo reportedly wagered nearly $1 million that Kanye West’s wife Bianca Censori would not be the most-Googled person of the year, and placed over $600,000 against Pope Leo XIV taking the top spot. His most audacious trade was a wager that rapper D4vd — to whom most Polymarket traders at the time assigned near-zero probability — would in fact be the number one most-searched individual. D4vd, who has since been charged with murder, ultimately took that top position when Google officially announced its Year in Search 2025 results on December 4, 2025.
Blockchain left a trail
Despite spreading his activity across multiple cryptocurrency accounts, Spagnuolo’s digital footprint proved impossible to fully erase. The FBI cracked his cover by tracing one account he had registered using an Italian identification card. After his winnings landed, he removed the “AlphaRaccoon” username from his Polymarket profile — but the blockchain record of his trades remained intact.
“Blockchain trading is transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave footprints.”
— Polymarket spokesperson
The prediction platform said it cooperated closely with the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), calling itself the only prediction platform whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States to date.
Google responds
Google confirmed it is cooperating with the investigation and has placed Spagnuolo on leave. A company spokeswoman acknowledged that the internal marketing data was accessed through a tool available to all employees, but stressed that exploiting such information for personal financial gain was a serious policy violation.
“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,” the spokeswoman said. “We’ve placed the employee on leave and will take the appropriate action.”
A new frontier for insider trading laws
The case is being watched closely by legal experts and the broader tech industry as one of only the second known federal criminal cases tied to prediction market trading. It raises fresh questions about how classical insider trading laws — built around stock markets — apply to the rapidly expanding world of crypto-based betting platforms.
US Attorney Jay Clayton issued a stark warning to corporate insiders in response to the charges. “Today’s charges reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets,” Clayton said. “Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted.”
The FBI’s James C. Barnacle Jr. echoed the sentiment, stating that the bureau “remains dedicated to searching for fraudsters who betray their employer for personal financial gains.”
Spagnuolo did not respond to media requests for comment, and a lawyer representing him had not been identified on court records at the time of publication.
