Google Engineer Charged With Insider Trading After Making $1.2M On D4vd Polymarket Bet
Stereogum • • business
Key Points:
- Michele Spagnulo, a Google software engineer, has been charged with insider trading for using confidential company search data to make over $1.2 million betting on alt-pop singer d4vd becoming Google's most-searched person of 2025.
- Spagnulo allegedly placed bets on Polymarket under the username AlphaRacoon between October and December, exploiting internal data that tracked user searches, despite the prediction market initially giving d4vd a near-zero chance.
- He faces charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, with accusations that he attempted to conceal the source and ownership of his illicit gains.
- Google has placed Spagnulo on leave and emphasized that using confidential information to place bets violates company policies, noting he accessed marketing material through a tool available to all employees.
- This case follows earlier public interest in d4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, after a 14-year-old girl's body was found in his Tesla, leading to his recent murder charge.