The US Department of Justice has charged Google software engineer Michele Spagnolo with insider trading. According to the investigation, the employee earned $1.2 million on the Polymarket platform by using confidential commercial information.
The US Department of Justice has charged Google software engineer Michele Spagnolo with insider trading. According to the investigation, the employee earned $1.2 million on the Polymarket platform by using confidential commercial information.
Spagnolo, who used the pseudonym AlphaRaccoon on Polymarket, has been working at Google for over 12 years, according to his LinkedIn profile, TechCrunch reports .
Market predictions such as Polymarket, Kalshi and others allow users to bet on almost anything. Insider trading is prohibited on these platforms as it is illegal, but some users still commit this offense.
According to the indictment, Spagnolo risked more than $2.7 million by betting on the results of Google’s “Year in Search” campaign, a marketing project in which the company reveals the world’s most popular search queries for the year. According to the investigation, Spagnolo gained access to confidential internal Google Search data about the most searched celebrities to determine the bets.
“Polymarket has worked closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and to date is the only prediction platform whose assistance has led to insider trading charges in the United States,” a Polymarket representative told TechCrunch.
A Google representative told the publication that the company is cooperating with law enforcement in this investigation.
“An employee accessed our marketing materials through a tool available to all employees, but using such sensitive information for bidding is a serious violation of our policies,” Google said in an emailed statement. “We have suspended this employee and will take appropriate action.”
