Betting on Polymarket’ should be a fun, low-intensity gamble where you buy ‘evet’ or ‘no’ shares for the outcome of a real-world event and hope to accurately predict how it will turn out – if you feel winning at this point 1 $ It pays, and if you're feeling lost, it pays nothing.
That is, if you are not an employee at Google’ and federal prosecutors do not claim to already know the answers, this could mean insider trading; This could be one of the most aggressively investigated white-collar crimes on record, requiring a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
According to ’, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michele Spagnuolo’, a software engineer on staff at Google’, allegedly pocketed more than $1.2 million (€1.1 million) at Polymarket’ using his employer's most discreet collection of annual trend data. His nickname was “AlphaRaccoon”.
Spagnuolo is now charged with commodity fraud, electronic fraud and money laundering by federal prosecutors in ’, New York.
The Spagnuolo case is the second high-profile case filed in more than a month on the trade of insiders in a prediction market; It's part of a largely unexplored legal frontier that prosecutors are grappling with how current fraud and commodity laws apply to platforms like Polymarket, which is unlike any traditional exchange.
Google’'s ‘In the Search Year, how did ’ turn into a trading tip?
Every December, Google publishes “Year Search Trends, a polished and carefully crafted description of the year's most searched searches. It drives traffic, occupies an important place in the media, and, as mentioned in the application notes, ’, a high-profile tool that Google“ shows advertisers access to, serves as ”.
Commercially, the real issue is surprise. Google protects basic data closely and even internally; access is limited to a limited number of employees.
Spagnuolo’, who has worked at Google’ since circa 2014, allegedly accessed an internal software tool with a banner labeled ’Google Confidential “, which allowed him to see Search Results of the Year before anyone else outside the company.
Enter AlphaRaccoon’
Using the prediction market platform Polymarket’ta, users can bet on the results of real-world events such as elections, sports results, and cultural moments using cryptocurrency. October 2025’te Polymarket begins offering markets on who will be the most searched person of the year on Google’.
Around the same time, a Polymarket account called “AlphaRaccoon” also started betting.
FBI Special Agent Brandon Racz claims that between October and December 2025, Spagnuolo’ accessed Google’'s secret Annual Search data and then placed bets, sometimes within hours, that accurately reflected what he saw on Polymarket’.
Spagnuolo’ allegedly accessed the internal vehicle on or near October 15, 2025’te. The next day, the AlphaRaccoon account stated that Kendrick Lamar’ would be the number one wanted person in 2025. pproximately 403 ’ $ (373 €) and Pope Leo XIV, against ’ being in the top 10,807 $ (€10,022) wagered.
According to prosecutors, he allegedly knew this because internal data had already told him so.
Betting against the crowd
What makes the alleged plan particularly striking is how it works in practice. Allegedly, Spagnuolo knew who couldn't rank high in the rankings, so he could bet heavily against crowd favorites and collect wins when popular predictions didn't materialize.
AlphaRaccoon account, the probability of the market %At a time when he put it around 85, Bianca Censori asked ’ whether he would be the number one wanted person, and “no told ” about 937,688. $ (869,083 €) wagered.
Pope Leo XIV against ’ implied probabilities approximately 613,587 $ (€568,628) and against Donald Trump’ %Around 90 about 509,149 $ (471,741 €) bets are placed.
In total, in about 25 bets on Annual Search Results, AlphaRaccoon risked about $2.75 million (€2.55 million).
When Google released the ’te results on December 4, 2025, confirming that the top five trending people worldwide were d4vd, Kendrick Lamar, Jimmy Kimmel, Tyler Robinson, and Pope Leo XIV, the account was left with a profit of about $1.2 million (€1.11 million).
Don't cover it up
After the markets were resolved, about $3.9 million (3.6 million euros) in USDC.e, a cryptocurrency tied to the value of the U.S. dollar, was released into the AlphaRaccoon account. On Dec. 10, the ’ account transferred about $5 million (€4.6 million) to a linked cryptocurrency wallet.
Polymarket used USDC.e’ as the main payment currency for trades and payments on the Polygon blockchain network.
According to the complaint, the funds went through at least two cryptocurrency swaps before being moved to a service that prosecutors said was designed to make transactions difficult to track.
Meanwhile, online communities on Discord and X’ had already begun speculating that AlphaRaccoon’ was one of Google’. Soon after, the username was quietly removed from the account and converted to an anonymous alphanumeric string.
The FBI tracked down the wallet anyway.
Prosecutors used the AlphaRaccoon account of cryptocurrency records, the Italian government's ID card, to account for a payment processor registered to the name Michele Spagnuolo, about 149,980. $ He claims to have tied it to a sending wallet (€138,916).
The accusations are
Spagnuolo faces three charges. The first is commodity fraud, which is based on allegations that prosecutors use important non-public information to transact on Polymarket’, which they consider a platform that offers commodity-linked contracts.
The second is electronic fraud related to the alleged misuse of Google’'s confidential business information for personal gain. The third is money laundering in connection with prosecutors' claims that they took steps to conceal the source and ownership of revenues after December 2025’.
The complaint was sworn in before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in the Southern District of ’, New York.
The case follows the trial of U.S. Army Special Forces Special Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke’nin, who was accused of placing lucrative bets on Polymarket’ using classified information on a U.S. military operation targeting Nicolás Maduro’ in April. Prosecutors say Van Dyke’ turned nearly $33,000 in bets into more than $400,000 in profits. He pleaded not guilty.
