Michele Spagnuolo was arrested for alleged insider trading on Polymarket, but the Switzerland-based engineer says he was simply gambling--activity that is beyond the reach of US commodities law. Michele Spagnuolo, the Google engineer arrested in May by US authorities for alleged insider trading on Polymarket, is making a new bold bet. On Wednesday, his legal team filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him. Spagnuolo isn't outright denying that he made money using internal information from Google. Instead, his legal team says that the wagers were not financial instruments subject to regulation by the United States' Commodities Exchange Act but rather good old-fashioned international betting that the US has no authority over.

According to federal prosecutors, Michele Spagnuolo made more than $1 million on the prediction market platform using confidential information about Google Search traffic. A Google security engineer has been charged with crimes stemming from allegedly placing trades on Polymarket using confidential internal information from the tech giant. Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Italian citizen, was arrested this morning in New York, as first reported by ABC News. Spagnuolo is charged with one count each of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. He has worked at Google since 2014 and was based out of the company's Zurich, Switzerland, offices.