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The Independent UK

National

Wyatte Grantham-Philips

Google worker charged with using confidential data to make $1.2 million in bets on Polymarket

Polymarket Google Michele Spagnuolo United States D4vd The Associated Press

Spagnuolo also made a series of Polymarket trades about other individuals who would or wouldn't rank in Google's 2025 search trends - (Getty/iStock)

US prosecutors have brought insider trading charges against a Google software engineer this week, alleging he used confidential company information to pocket more than $1.2 million from prediction market platform Polymarket with bets on search trends.

In a complaint unsealed in New York, authorities identified the employee as 36-year-old Michele Spagnuolo — an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland who has worked for Google since 2014. Under the online name "AlphaRaccoon", they alleged, Spagnuolo used the company's 2025 "Year in Search" data before publication to enter Polymarket wagers about the most trending Googled people of last year.

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