FBI arrests OpenAI engineer over hidden recording device

US federal agents have arrested an OpenAI engineer and charged him with installing a hidden audio recording device in an executive conference room at the artificial intelligence company, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.

Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national who had worked as an engineer at OpenAI since July 2025, faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release if convicted, The Express Tribune reported, citing Reuters. He has been a legal permanent resident of the US since September 2020.

Hidden in toilet paper

According to the Justice Department and an FBI complaint:

• The discovery: OpenAI found the device plugged into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room at one of its San Francisco buildings on September 30
• The device: thumb-sized, with a microphone and the ability to connect to a camera, concealed in toilet paper
• When: it was installed on or about September 28, and its stored data was encrypted and inaccessible
• Second device: investigators later found a similar customised device in Alfozan’s personal bag
• Planning: for about a month until September 16, he used an AI productivity agent to look up information on meeting-room calendars and capabilities

“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,” FBI Director Kash Patel said.

Caught with help from AI

OpenAI said on X that it used its own AI models to understand the device and trace where it came from, identifying the employee who had planted it a few days earlier. It said it had evidence he intended to place more devices in sensitive areas to secretly record meetings.

“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,” the company said. It referred the matter to the FBI, which is continuing to investigate.

An email sent to an address associated with Alfozan did not get a response, and it was not clear who his lawyer was. The Saudi embassy in the US did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters said.

Background

A LinkedIn profile showed that Alfozan studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, and previously worked at Meta and Microsoft. Reuters could not independently verify those details.

The arrest comes days after OpenAI said it had fired three researchers, Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, after an investigation found they had breached company policies on handling sensitive information. The researchers published a letter arguing that the firings could undermine a culture in which researchers could raise safety concerns. Separately, The Information reported that OpenAI was in early talks to buy Trail of Bits, a startup that finds and fixes flaws in open-source software.

Why it matters

The case highlights growing security concerns around sensitive AI research, as companies and governments compete fiercely for the talent and technology that could bring economic and strategic advantages. Read our report on Trump naming an AI czar.

This article draws on reporting by The Express Tribune and Reuters.