A Saudi OpenAI engineer has been arrested for allegedly planting a hidden recording device in an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco offices to secretly record confidential conversations.
The US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, who had worked at OpenAI since July 2025, was arrested on October 9 and charged with illegal interception of oral communications.
The DOJ says OpenAI security personnel discovered the recording device on September 30 while it was plugged into a USB port behind a television in an executive conference room.
According to the DOJ, OpenAI discovered that the device was hidden in toilet paper, installed around September 28, and contained encrypted data.
“On or about September 30, OpenAI employees discovered a secret audio recording device (Recorder 1) plugged into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room in one of their buildings in San Francisco,” the says DOJ press release.
Source: DOJ
According to the Justice Department, the conference room was regularly used for meetings involving confidential information about OpenAI’s proprietary research, product plans, technical capabilities, business relationships and government commitments.
On surveillance camera footage, Alfozan was allegedly seen on multiple occasions near the conference room, even though he was not authorized to attend meetings taking place there.
According to the complaint, Alfozan also used a productivity tool to search for information about OpenAI’s offices, meeting rooms, locations and meeting schedules.
The complaint also states that a chatbot account associated with Alfozan’s wife was used to ask questions about building and hiding recording devices.
These included requests to create a continuous audio recorder, change Wi-Fi connectivity, improve live listening capabilities, and encrypt an SD card.
“The same chatbot account also submitted prompts specific to Recording Device 1, including its custom header and unique MAC address, between September 27 and 28,” the DOJ alleges.
On October 5, Alfozan was allegedly caught on surveillance footage returning to the conference room and looking behind the television on which the device was installed.
The complaint states that on the same day, OpenAI security staff discovered a second, similar recording device in a bag that Alfozan had left unattended in another room.
A statement released on X said: OpenAI said It used its own AI models to examine the suspicious device and help identify the employee responsible.
“We used our models to understand the device and its origins and determined that a specific employee had placed it several days earlier,” OpenAI said.
The company said it terminated the employee and referred the incident to the FBI.
“At this time, we have no evidence that this individual is inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data,” OpenAI added.
If convicted, Alfozan faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
