By Wyatte Grantham-Philips
Publication Date: 2026-06-01 05:20:00
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.
Jay Clayton, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Wednesday that these charges “reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential…
