FBI says Google engineer used internal search data to win $1.2M on Polymarket
A Google engineer has been charged with insider trading after allegedly using confidential internal data to win $1.2 million on a prediction market. Michele Spagnuolo accessed Google's internal systems to place bets on the most searched names for 2025. Google has suspended the employee and is cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation.
- ▪Michele Spagnuolo was arrested and charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
- ▪He allegedly made a profit of $1.2 million by betting on Polymarket using confidential Google data.
- ▪Spagnuolo's account, 'AlphaRaccoon', made bets with near-perfect accuracy on unlikely outcomes.
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| Original publisher | Ars Technica |
| Canonical URL | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/fbi-says-google-engineer-used-internal-search-data-to-win-1-2m-on-polymarket/ |
| Publication time | Sat, 30 May 2026 16:07:54 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-30T16:29:38.850Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-30T16:29:38.850Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 73Fz1zpaCjm- |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Prediction market bets FBI says Google engineer used internal search data to win $1.2M on Polymarket FBI: Googler who knew outcome of bets in advance made $1.2M profit on Polymarket. Jon Brodkin – May 28, 2026 3:01 pm | 65 Credit: Getty Images | Josh Edelson Credit: Getty Images | Josh Edelson Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav The US charged a Google software engineer with insider trading after he allegedly made a profit of $1.2 million on Polymarket bets related to which public figures would top Google’s rankings for the most searched names in 2025.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ars Technica.
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