A Saudi national, employed as an engineer with OpenAI, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for allegedly planting a recording device in one of the conference rooms of OpenAI’s office in San Francisco.

According to the FBI, the accused identified as Abdulrahman Alfozan (35), was arrested on October 9 for allegedly planting an audio recording device a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense, on the back of a television in an executive conference room inside one of OpenAI’s buildings in San Francisco.

“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,” said FBI Director Kash Patel.

FBI officials also added that the accused had used AI tools from his employer’s productivity tools to make multiple inquiries about OpenAI’s building addresses, meeting rooms’ capacity and calendars, locations of leadership and exec and external partner meetings.

FBI said the accused Alfozan had used an AI chatbot account associated with his wife to submit prompts related “ to building, customizing, installing, audio recording, testing, obfuscating, and remote accessing a device, including inquiries about “building a continuous audio recorder, customizing Wi-Fi connectivity, improving audio and live listening and encrypting the SD card”.

He appeared in the federal court on Tuesday and is now scheduled for a detention hearing on October 19, 2026.
OpenAI had discovered the audio recording device inside a USB port, concealed in a toilet paper, attached to the TV on September 30 and initial investigation by the company has revealed that the device was planted somewhere around October 28.

“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,” read a statement from the US Department of Justice.

OpenAI, in its complaint, has also alleged that on or about October 5, 2026, 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 similar to Recording Device 1,” read a statement from US DOJ.

OpenAI released a statement claiming the accused employee was tracked by using company’s AI models.

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.

— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) October 13, 2026

“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,” read a statement from OpenAI.

The arrest of Alfozan comes barely a week after OpenAI fired three AI safety researchers for alleged breach of trust after the researchers wrote a public letter citing warnings against advances of artificial intelligence.

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