There is a reasonably well documented underground economy of bribing Instagram employees to verify accounts (blue checkboxes) [0] and steal sought after usernames.[1]

Amazon employees have been convicted of bribery for taking $ to "leak information about the company’s search and ranking algorithms, as well as share confidential data on third-party sellers they competed with on the marketplace".[2]

If this happens at Facebook and Amazon, I can imagine it happening at Google.

[0] https://mashable.com/article/instagram-verification-paid-bla...

[1] I did not find any citable evidence on the first page of Google, but it's something I've heard from friends that are into influencer stuff. Supported by a quote from [1]

"he decided to message someone with an interesting handle (a.k.a. username). That someone said they were able to take over that account because he worked at Instagram."

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/former-amazon-employee-sente...