As ABC News previously reported, federal prosecutors charged a Google employee with fraud after he allegedly made $1.2 million on Polymarket bets related to search-related trends in 2025. In their now-unsealed complaint, prosecutors allege that Michele Spagnuolo “knew about the outcome of these bets before the trading public did because he gained access to Google’s confidential, commercially valuable internal data.” Spagnuolo was arrested in New York on Wednesday but released on $2.25 million bond, ABC News reports. He has been charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
Spagnuolo bets on Polymarket under the username alfaracoon, attracting the attention of outlets with his successful search-related bets forbes And users on social media last December. According to the complaint, in one instance, Spagnuolo correctly predicted that a singer named D4vd would be the “#1 searched person on Google” in 2025, despite a “near-zero probability” specified by Polymarket.
At the same time, Spagnuolo reportedly bet that Pope Leo XIV and Kendrick Lamar would not appear on Google’s “Search of the Year in 2025” lists, which are difficult to predict due to how they are calculated. Google says it ranked last year’s terms based on which saw “the greatest growth in traffic” between January 1, 2025, and November 25, 2025 – not the highest number of searches – adding, “By measuring the increase in interest rather than the total number of searches, we could identify trends that were unique to 2025.”
“Once he won, Spagnuolo took deliberate steps to conceal his unlawful use of non-public information by attempting to obscure the source and ownership of his illegal income,” the complaint states. Last month, federal prosecutors charged U.S. Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke with fraud for allegedly making a $400,000 Polymarket bet to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
In a statement on X, Polymarket called itself an “enforcement leader,” adding that its “market integrity infrastructure” flagged Spagnuolo’s activity. “Blockchain trading is transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave no footprints,” the company writes, without noting whether the people investing their money know this.
“We are working with law enforcement on their investigation,” Google spokeswoman Jacqueline Vazquez said in a statement. The Verge. “The employee accessed our marketing materials using tools 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.”
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