Google employee charged with insider trading over Polymarket bets
Summary
A Google software engineer, Michele Spagnuolo, has been charged with fraud for using secret Google information to make bets on the Polymarket prediction platform and win over $1.2 million. Prosecutors say he used confidential data about Google’s annual most-searched list to place these bets before the information became public.Key Facts
- Michele Spagnuolo is a Google software engineer living in Switzerland.
- He made bets totaling about $2.75 million on Polymarket using insider knowledge.
- The bets included predicting which person would be most searched on Google in 2025.
- Prosecutors say he used an account named “AlphaRaccoon” for these trades.
- He faces charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
- Google has placed Spagnuolo on leave and is cooperating with law enforcement.
- Polymarket has worked with prosecutors and says this is the first insider trading case linked to its platform in the US.
- A recent similar case involved a US soldier accused of using classified information to bet on Polymarket about Venezuelan President Maduro.
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