• gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I feel like this is a “baby in the river” scenario. You know — after the third or fourth one, you should stop just diving in to save them and go look upstream to figure out who is throwing all the babies in!

    We need to stop saying “wow, another person abused their position and inside knowledge to make money on polymarket.”

    Of course they did. Polymarket is practically purpose-engineered to be abused by people with inside knowledge. It would be more shocking to discover that no one was abusing it. It’s basically a casino that lets you bring your own cards from home. I honestly don’t understand why it wasn’t shut down a long time ago.

    • Snarwin@fedia.io
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      21 hours ago

      I honestly don’t understand why it wasn’t shut down a long time ago.

      Because if it was shut down, the Epstein class couldn’t abuse their insider knowledge to make money. Laws are only for the proles.

    • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The US Congress is investigating. The people who wrote their own laws to allow insider trading.

      No one is being the least bit sneaky anymore, this is just straight up grift and if you don’t like it then maybe we declare your hometown an enemy of the state.

      START SHOOTING ICE

  • Devolution@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    so a Google worker gets charged for making 1.2 million on bets but the Google CEO is OK with data centers that illegally suck water and electricity and engaging in surveillance activity with Palantir.

    Makes sense to me. 🙃

    • limonfiesta@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Makes sense to me

      Because insider trading is still sometimes illegal.

      But multinational corporations raping the environment and helping to build a dystopian surveillance state is not only legal, but incentivized and rewarded by the state.

    • axh@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Google CEO is OK with data centers that illegally suck

      Yeah, I am pretty sure CEO also uses that data for bets, but they call it investments and praise him for it.

  • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago

    Interesting bit from the court docs of how they traced it to him:

    Based on cryptocurrency tracing analysis performed by FBI personnel, I have learned the following, among other things: on or about November 12, 2025, and November 13, 2025, in a total of approximately three transactions, Wallet-0xAf6 sent a total of approximately $149,980 of cryptocurrency to particular cryptocurrency swapping service (“Swapping Service- 1”).2,3 Based on documents from Swapping Service-1, I have learned that shortly after those three transactions, Swapping Service-1 sent approximately $149,980 of cryptocurrency to a particular cryptocurrency payment processor (“Payment Processor-1”). Based on documents from Payment Processor-1, I have learned that the November 12 and 13, 2025 transactions were received by account in the name of “Michele Spagnuolo,” and that an Italian Government identification card was used to open the account at Payment Processor-1. A copy of that identification card, which I have reviewed, appears to be a government identification card for MICHELE SPAGNUOLO, a/k/a “AlphaRaccoon,” the defendant.

    Seems like whatever swapping service he used is what got him as he probably assumed that they wouldn’t comply with law enforcement or have detailed records.

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      further proving just because you’re smart, doesn’t mean you’re a criminal mastermind.

      guy should have laundered it across multiple wallets and various crypto flavors. at the very least it would have stopped anyone from looking and going “this one here is moving a lot of money”.

  • someguy3@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The court papers said Spagnuolo’s most lucrative alleged Polymarket wins were correctly predicting who would and would not be the most searched for person on Google in 2025.

    He allegedly placed bets against names, like Bianca Censori and President Donald Trump, and chose the singer D4vd as taking the top spot when the betting platform had odds of that result being near zero.