A Saudi national employed as an engineer at OpenAI has been arrested by the FBI after allegedly planting a surreptitious audio recording device inside an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco headquarters.
According to the Justice Department’s October 13 announcement, 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan was arrested on Friday, October 9, and made his initial appearance in federal court on Tuesday.
Alfozan, who had worked as an engineer for OpenAI since July 2025, is accused of placing a concealed recording device in a room where company executives regularly discussed highly confidential information, including proprietary research, advanced AI capabilities, government engagements, and strategic business decisions.
If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.
According to the DOJ’s press release:
According to the complaint, Alfozan had been employed as an engineer by OpenAI since July 2025.
On or about Sept. 30, OpenAI personnel discovered a surreptitious audio recording device (Recording Device 1) inserted into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room inside one of their buildings in San Francisco.
OpenAI determined that the device, which had been concealed in toilet paper, was installed on or about Sept. 28, and that its contents were encrypted.
Recording Device 1
Closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage inside OpenAI’s office showed that Alfozan appeared near the executive conference room on multiple dates prior to the device’s discovery, although he had no authority to access or to participate in meetings occurring in the executive conference room.
According to the complaint, meetings in the executive conference room where Recording Device 1 was discovered frequently involved discussions of highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans, and business-development opportunities, as well as nonpublic information about Open AI’s technical progress and strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements, and commercial relationships.
According to the complaint, prior to Sept. 28, Alfozan used a productivity tool to make multiple inquiries about Open AI’s building addresses, meeting rooms, meeting-room capacities and calendars, “leadership and exec” locations, and external partner meetings.
Moreover, a chatbot account associated with Alfozan’s spouse (which shared multiple identifiers and attributes with Alfozan’s own chatbot account) submitted prompts between Sept. 24 and Sept. 30 related to building, customizing, installing, audio recording, testing, obfuscating, and remote accessing a device, including inquiries about “build[ing] a continuous audio recorder,” “customiz[ing] Wi-Fi . . . connectivity,” “improv[ing] audio and live listening,” and “encrypt[ing] the SD card,” among other things.
The same chatbot account also submitted prompts specifically related to Recording Device 1, including its custom header and unique MAC address, between Sept. 27 and Sept. 28.
The complaint further alleges that on Oct. 5, Alfozan entered the executive conference room and appeared to look behind the television into which Recording Device 1 had been inserted, as captured below:
Image of Alfozan
Finally, the complaint alleges that, also on or about Oct. 5, Alfozan left a bag unattended in a different room in an OpenAI building. OpenAI security personnel found and opened Alfozan’s bag, inside which they discovered — among other things, including Alfozan’s wallet and ID — another recording device (Recording Device 2) similar to Recording Device 1.
FBI Director Kash Patel stated: “According to the complaint unsealed today, Abdulrahman Alfozan allegedly concealed a covert recording device inside his employer’s executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence technology. Protecting American SI innovation is essential to safeguarding our nation’s economic strength and national security, and the FBI views that mission as one of our highest counterintelligence priorities.”
FBI and partners arrested this individual after he allegedly concealed a recording device inside his employer’s executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence tech – Thank you to @ODNIgov Jay Clayton @AGToddBlanche and our law enforcement partners for their support in this case. Investigation ongoing. Protecting American SI innovation is critically important and FBI views it as one of our highest counterintelligence priorities.
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 13, 2026
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