The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national who worked as an engineer at OpenAI, for allegedly planting a concealed recording device in an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco office.
According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Alfozan was arrested on October 9 and appeared in federal court on October 13. He is charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications. Prosecutors allege that the device was installed to secretly record sensitive discussions concerning OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technology. If convicted, Alfozan faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
Alfozan, a US permanent resident, joined OpenAI as an engineer in July 2025, according to the DOJ.
OpenAI employees discovered the device on September 30 during a security sweep, according to the criminal complaint. It had been concealed inside toilet paper and inserted into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room.
The company determined that the device had been installed around September 28. Its contents were encrypted, preventing investigators from accessing them, the complaint stated. OpenAI subsequently used its internal AI models to examine the device and trace its origins, identifying an employee suspected of planting it.
“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,” the company said in a statement.
OpenAI referred the matter to the FBI, which launched an investigation. The company said it had found no evidence that Alfozan had improperly accessed or extracted model weights, source code or customer data. His employment was terminated following the incident.
According to the criminal complaint, Alfozan used an internal productivity tool to make multiple inquiries about OpenAI’s buildings, meeting rooms, room capacities, calendars, executive locations and meetings with external partners.
Investigators also examined prompts submitted between September 24 and September 30 through a chatbot account associated with Alfozan’s spouse. The account, which prosecutors said shared several identifiers and attributes with Alfozan’s own account, contained queries about building, installing, concealing and remotely accessing an audio-recording device.
The prompts reportedly included questions about continuous audio recording, wireless connectivity, live listening and encrypting an SD card. The account also submitted queries specifically related to the discovered device, including references to its custom header and unique media access control (MAC) address.
Surveillance footage allegedly showed Alfozan near the executive conference room on several occasions before the device was discovered, despite not being authorised to access the room or attend meetings there. The complaint further alleges that on October 5, Alfozan entered the room and appeared to look behind the television where the device had been installed.
On the same day, he allegedly left a bag unattended in another room at the office. OpenAI security personnel searched the bag and found his wallet, identification and a second recording device similar to the one discovered in the conference room, according to prosecutors.
The complaint states that Alfozan later retrieved the bag from the lost-and-found facility and reported that some of his belongings were missing, but did not mention the second device.
Alfozan is also listed as a venture partner at Raed Ventures, a venture capital firm. According to the firm’s website, he previously served as an engineering lead at OpenAI, working on AI agents and the company’s data platform. His earlier professional experience includes roles at Meta, Microsoft and SAP. He holds a degree in computer science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Alfozan remains presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing, and he is scheduled to appear in federal court for a detention hearing on October 19, according to the DOJ.
