DOJ and CFTC charge Google engineer with $1.2M Polymarket insider trades using search data
On May 27, 2026, the Department of Justice and Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed parallel criminal and civil charges against Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Google software engineer, alleging he earned approximately $1.2 million in profits by trading on Polymarket using confidential Google search data. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York accused Spagnuolo of wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly exploiting non-public corporate information to place bets on the crypto-native prediction market platform through an account called AlphaRaccoon. Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, stands to lose millions in Google stock grants tied to his employment. The case tests whether traditional insider trading and securities fraud frameworks extend to event-contract markets.
Polymarket must prove its surveillance can detect search-data-driven positions by corporate insiders. Any gap gives DOJ and CFTC precedent to treat the platform as a co-defendant in future parallel actions.
Third coordinated DOJ-CFTC insider trading action against prediction market platforms in under a week, after parallel filings against a U.S. soldier and the Google engineer case, cementing a new enforcement template.