Michele Spagnuolo, a Google engineer based in Switzerland, allegedly accessed the company's confidential "Year in Search 2025" rankings on Nov. 27 and discovered that singer D4vd had topped the list, surpassing Kendrick Lamar. Within three hours, he began placing bets on Polymarket under the username "AlphaRaccoon." Federal authorities say he earned more than $1.2 million from roughly two dozen trades, according to a complaint unsealed Wednesday in the Southern District of New York.
When Spagnuolo placed his bets, the market assigned D4vd near-zero odds. Pope Leo XIV was favored at 51.5 percent, Donald Trump at 9.5 percent. D4vd, whose real name is David Burke, traded at 0.2 percent.
Spagnuolo wagered $937,688 that Bianca Censori would not top the list and $613,587 that Pope Leo XIV would not claim the top spot. He risked approximately $2.75 million across 25 separate bets on outcomes the market viewed as unlikely.
Federal prosecutors charged Spagnuolo on Wednesday with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a civil suit simultaneously.
D4vd's search dominance followed horrifying headlines — the discovery of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez's remains in his Tesla trunk in September. Burke has been charged with murder. Spagnuolo appears to have been the only person to foresee his rise to the #1 search ranking, and capitalized on that knowledge with seven-figure returns.
