Federal prosecutors have announced the arrest of Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old engineer from Saudi Arabia, on suspicion of placing an audio recording device in an executive conference room at OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters. Alfozan was arrested on Friday and charged with attempting to intercept oral communications. He made his initial court appearance on Tuesday and remains in custody.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco, an unattended bag found in the company's offices contained Alfozan's wallet, identification, and a recording device. The device was discovered on September 30, concealed in toilet paper and plugged into a USB port on a television in the conference room. It is believed to have been installed around September 28, and its contents were encrypted.
Surveillance footage reportedly shows Alfozan near the conference room on multiple occasions prior to the discovery, although he was not authorized to enter the room or attend meetings there. Meetings in this room often involved confidential information, including proprietary research and product plans.
Before the device was installed, Alfozan allegedly used a productivity tool to inquire about OpenAI's building addresses, meeting rooms, and the locations of leadership meetings. Additionally, a chatbot account associated with Alfozan's spouse submitted prompts related to building and installing recording devices between September 24 and September 30.
On October 5, Alfozan reportedly entered the conference room and appeared to inspect the area behind the television. That same day, he left a bag unattended in another room, which contained a second recording device similar to the first.
U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian stated that the case is a matter of national security. FBI Director Kash Patel emphasized the importance of protecting U.S. AI innovation as a key counterintelligence priority. If convicted, Alfozan could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The case is being prosecuted by the National Security, Cyber & Special Prosecutions Section of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of California. OpenAI reported that after discovering the device, employees utilized the company's AI models to investigate its origin and subsequently referred the matter to the FBI. The company expressed gratitude to the agents and prosecutors for their prompt action.
OpenAI's technical surveillance countermeasures team located the device during a sweep of the conference room. The company described the device as sophisticated, featuring advanced encryption and audio monitoring capabilities, designed to evade detection. Investigators used OpenAI's models to analyze forensic images of the device's storage.
OpenAI stated that it has evidence suggesting Alfozan intended to place additional recording devices in sensitive areas to secretly record meetings. Alfozan was part of the product team and was terminated on the same day as his arrest. Prior to that, OpenAI gradually restricted his access to systems and spaces.
Alfozan's LinkedIn profile indicates he served as an engineering lead on OpenAI's AI agents platform and previously worked as a founding engineer at Nash, an AI infrastructure company, and as a senior systems engineer at Meta. He holds a master's degree in data science from UC Berkeley.
A detention hearing is scheduled for October 19. OpenAI has stated that it has no evidence that Alfozan improperly accessed or took sensitive data and will continue to cooperate with the FBI's investigation.