U.S. prosecutors have indicted a Google software engineer on allegations of trading in prediction markets using inside information.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said it charged Google engineer Michele Spagnuolo (미켈레 스파뇰로) with fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors said Spagnuolo placed bets on Polymarket using non-public Google “Year in Search” data accessible only to some employees.

Investigative documents said the most searched people at the time included rapper Kendrick Lamar (켄드릭 라마) and singer d4vd (디포브), and Spagnuolo invested in related contracts based on that information and earned about $1.2 million, according to the investigation.

He was also reported to have made additional profits by correctly predicting the timing of the release of Google's Gemini 3 AI model.

Google said it removed Spagnuolo from his duties and is cooperating with the investigation. The company said, “It was an internal tool accessible to all employees, but betting using confidential information is a serious policy violation.”

The case is the second prosecution involving insider trading tied to Polymarket. A U.S. special operations forces member was previously charged over allegations of trading using information about a military operation in Venezuela.