A Google employee is facing federal charges after prosecutors accused him of using confidential company data to make more than $1 million betting on prediction markets tied to internet search trends — including a wager connected to singer D4vd.
According to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday, May 27, in New York and obtained by ABC News, 36-year-old Google information security engineer Michele Spagnuolo allegedly accessed internal search analytics unavailable to the public and then used that information to place highly profitable bets through the prediction platform Polymarket. Federal prosecutors charged Spagnuolo with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
Investigators claim Spagnuolo leveraged his role at Google to monitor real-time search activity before official rankings and trend reports were released publicly. One of the most significant wagers involved a prediction that D4vd would become Google’s most-searched person of 2025. Prosecutors said the market assigned almost no chance to that outcome when the bet was placed.
Using an account allegedly operating under the name “AlphaRaccoon,” Spagnuolo reportedly cashed in after Google released its Year in Search 2025 rankings on December 4. Authorities said the bets generated approximately $1.2 million in profit.
“Unlike the counterparties to his trades, Spagnuolo knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did,” prosecutors wrote in the complaint, alleging that he used “confidential, commercially valuable internal data” to gain an unfair advantage.
D4vd, whose real name is David Burke, became one of the most-searched names online following his April 2026 arrest in Los Angeles. The singer was charged with first-degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains in connection with the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
Federal authorities said Spagnuolo attempted to conceal the source of his profits after the bets paid out. He was arrested on Wednesday, May 27, in New York and later released on a $2.25 million bond, secured in part with $1 million in cash.
In a statement, Google confirmed it is cooperating with investigators. “The employee accessed our marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of our policies,” a company spokesperson said.
