How Google Tech Made $1.2 Million Using Top 2025 Search Trends on Accused Murderer D4vd | Today’s news
A Google employee in the US has been charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering for using inside information from the tech giant to make $1.2 million (approx. ₹11.49 million worth of bets on Polymarket. Thirty-six-year-old employee Michele Spagnuolo worked as an information security engineer at Google and allegedly traded between October and December last year.
Why was the Google employee arrested?
Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen by birth, is based out of Google’s offices in Zurich, Switzerland. He was arrested Wednesday morning in New York and appeared before a magistrate judge and was later released on $2.25 million bail, ABC News reported.
US authorities said Spagnuolo gained access to internal Google information through software used inside the company and later created an account on Polymarket under the alias “AlphaRaccoon”. place bets on developments related to the company.
His most profitable bet was perhaps when he bet $1.2 million on who would be the most searched person on Google in 2025, correctly predicting that it would be D4vd, as the singer-songwriter’s name surfaced on the Internet following his alleged connection to a widely discussed criminal case for which he was later charged.
“Michele Spagnuolo allegedly abused his increased access to confidential trends to place bets with non-public information and obtain more than one million dollars in illegal profits,” FBI Deputy Director James C. Barnacle Jr. said in the complaint.
“SPAGNUOLO used the AlphaRaccoon account to risk approximately $2,754,092 on markets related to Google inside information. Soon after the Google information was publicly disclosed and the markets settled, the SPAGNUOLO AlphaRaccoon account made approximately $1.2 million based on its use of inside information in connection with bets placed on Polymarket.” complaint notes
Google responds to the controversy:
Speaking to WIRED, a Google spokesperson explained that the company is cooperating with the investigation and that the employee has been placed on leave as it takes appropriate action against him.
“We are working with law enforcement on their investigation. An employee accessed our marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious violation of our policies. We have placed the employee on leave and will take appropriate action,” the spokeswoman said.
Other problems for Spagnuolo:
In addition to the criminal charges, CNBC reports that Spagnuolo is also facing civil action from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on insider trading charges. The complaint alleges that he predicted the outcome of several “Year in Search” reports on prediction markets, including “Will Zohran Mamdani will be in the top 5 most searched” and “Will Squid Game will be the most searched TV show”.
“Spagnuolo misappropriated material confidential information by knowingly or recklessly using it to trade the 2025 contracts in the Lookup List, in violation of his duties of trust and confidentiality,” the complaint alleges.
Notably, this is the second highly publicized case of classified information being used to place bets on a prediction market. This April, Army Special Forces Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested for using classified information to make more than 400,000 from Polymarket for a US operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.