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Saudi OpenAI engineer arrested over hidden recording device; FBI director Kash Patel issues statement
Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi OpenAI employee, was arrested over a hidden recording device in the company's executive conference room.
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Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi OpenAI employee, was arrested over installing a hidden recording device in the executive conference room. The Department of Justice announced the news of Alfozan's arrest as FBI director Kash Patel reacted to the news.
“An employee of OpenAI, a super intelligence (SI), also known as artificial intelligence, company headquartered in San Francisco, has been arrested for and charged with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications,” the DOJ statement read.
Patel reacted on X saying “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.”
Who is Abdulrahman Alfozan?
Alfozan is a 35-year-old national of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He was arrested on October 9 and appeared in federal court on October 13. Currently in federal custody, Alfozan is slated to appear for a detention hearing on October 19.
He was reportedly working for OpenAI since July 2025.
An alleged LinkedIn account believed to be Alfozan's noted he worked at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. It also noted Meta and Microsoft among his previous workplaces. The account also listed UC Berkeley and MIT as his places of education. HT.com could not independently verify this information.
What is Abdulrahman Alfozan accused of?
As per the complaint, OpenAI personnel found the audio recording device around September 30, 2026. It was in a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room inside one of OpenAI’s buildings in San Francisco.
The device had reportedly been concealed in toilet paper, and is believed to have been installed on September 28. Its contents are believed to be encrypted, the complaint also notes.
CCTV footage inside OpenAI’s office showed Alfozan appear near the executive conference room many times before the device’s discovery. He had no authority to access, or take part in meetings there.
The meetings in the executive conference room the device was discovered often 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 OpenAI’s technical progress and strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements, and commercial relationships’, the DOJ noted.
Alfozan reportedly used a productivity tool and asked about OpenAI’s building addresses, meeting rooms, meeting-room capacities and calendars, and locations of “leadership and exec” as well as external partner meetings. Also, a chatbot account associated with his spouse had prompts between September 24 and September 30 around building, customizing, installing, audio recording, testing, obfuscating, and remote accessing a device. There were also 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." This account also submitted prompts related to the recording device found in the conference room, including the custom header and unique MAC address, between September 27 and September 28, the DOJ noted.
It was also alleged that on October 5, Alfozan went into the executive conference room and appeared to look behind the television into which the device was inserted. Furthrr, the complaint alleged that on or about October 5, Alfozan left a bag unattended in another room in an OpenAI building. The company's security found and opened the bag, to discover another similar recording device.
Alfozan faces a maximum sentence of 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine, and then 3 years of supervised release, if he's convicted.
What OpenAI said
OpenAI, in a statement, said "We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices. We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.
At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated.
We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance. Our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats."
