Google Engineer Accused of Insider Trading on Online Betting Platform

California. An engineer at American multinational technology company Google has been arrested on charges of winning a large sum of money on an online betting platform using the company's secret internal information. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have charged Italian citizen Michele Spagnuolo with violating insider trading laws. He was residing in Switzerland but was arrested on Wednesday and presented in a federal court in New York.

According to the prosecution, Spagnuolo had placed bets on Polymarket using secret marketing and internal information he accessed through his work at Google. He is accused of winning approximately $1.2 million from these bets. A Google spokesperson stated that the company is cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation and that the employee has been suspended. According to her, although the internal information used was obtained through tools accessible to all employees, using it secretly for betting is a serious violation of company policy.

A spokesperson for Polymarket also stated that they are fully cooperating with the authorities in the investigation. 'Blockchain trading is transparent and traceable, and wrongdoers leave their mark,' he said. Blockchain is a digital ledger system related to cryptocurrency, which is the main payment method used on Polymarket. The US Attorney's Office, in collaboration with the FBI, arrested him. ABC News reported that Spagnuolo was released on a $2.25 million bail. According to the investigation, Spagnuolo conducted transactions under the account name 'Alfaracun'. The FBI stated that they found an account opened using an Italian identity card and linked it to his various accounts.

Spagnuolo had worked as an Information Security Engineer at Google for over 12 years. He started using Polymarket in 2024. According to the prosecution, he placed bets worth approximately $2.7 million on Google-related topics from October to December last year. It is claimed that he made a profit of over $1 million using internal information.

According to court documents, one of his biggest wins was a correct prediction of who would be the most searched person on Google in 2025. He bet on names like Bianca Censori and Donald Trump. He also predicted that singer D4VD would come out on top. According to court documents, when he placed the bet in November, he already knew from internal data that D4VD had become the most searched person on Google. D4VD is currently in jail on charges of murdering a teenager.