Welcome to Arrest Stories. A Google software engineer in New York was arrested after allegedly turning his access to confidential company data into more than one million dollars in prediction market winnings. Heres what may have happened.
Michele Spagnuolo, thirty six years old and an Italian citizen, was arrested Wednesday morning in New York. He appeared briefly before a federal magistrate judge, did not enter a plea, and was released on a two point two five million dollar bond, secured by one million dollars cash, fifty thousand dollars of which was required to be posted that same Wednesday.
Spagnuolo is charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
According to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday in the Southern District of New York, Spagnuolo was employed as a Google software engineer with access to internal company data that tracked what users were searching for. Prosecutors allege he misappropriated that confidential and nonpublic information to place a series of bets on Polymarket, a prediction market platform, using an account under the name AlphaRaccoon.
Among those bets, Spagnuolo allegedly wagered that the singer known as D four vd would be Google's most searched person in twenty twenty five. At the time that bet was placed, Polymarket had assigned a near zero probability to that outcome occurring.
On December fourth, twenty twenty five, Google publicly announced its Year in Search twenty twenty five results. Following that announcement, the AlphaRaccoon account profited one point two million dollars on Spagnuolo's Google Year in Search twenty twenty five related bets.
The complaint stated, quote, 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, end quote.
Prosecutors further alleged that after winning, Spagnuolo took steps to hide the origins of his proceeds. The complaint read, quote, once he won, Spagnuolo then took deliberate steps to conceal his unlawful use of nonpublic information by attempting to obscure the source and ownership of his unlawful proceeds, end quote.
A Google spokesperson issued the following statement: quote, we're working with law enforcement on their investigation. 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. We've placed the employee on leave and will take the appropriate action, end quote.
All suspects presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Do not take this report as factual, always verify facts. Thanks for watching Arrest Stories.