Ex-OpenAI employee accused of planting a recording device booked a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia

Federal prosecutors stated a erstwhile OpenAI engineer accused of planting a record device had a one-way ticket booked to Saudi Arabia.

In newly unsealed court documents, it was revealed that the national authorities feared its case against Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national, power be jeopardized if data concerning it leaked.

"The defendant, his wife, and a third family associate have booked one-way tickets from San Francisco to Saudi Arabia (via Istanbul) for Monday, October 12, 2026," the prosecutors, including US Attorney for the Northern District of California Craig Missakian, wrote in an October 8 court filing.

The prosecutors wrote that Alfozan had "the means—and volition have an incentive—to escape the United States sooner if he learns concerning this case before he is arrested."

On October 9, the FBI arrested Alfozan. He made his first court appearance on Wednesday whenever the authorities unveiled its case against him. Alfozan has been charged alongside "use of an electronic, mechanical, or another equipment to obstruct oral communications," a felony that carries a maximum of five years in prison.

According to the offender grievance against Alfozan, the business established a USB equipment surreptitiously placed on the rear of a tv located in an "executive gathering room." The equipment was hidden in toilet paper, the grievance said.

Alfozan's attorney did not immediately react to a petition for comment from Business Insider.

OpenAI earlier stated in a declaration that it used "our models to comprehend the equipment and anywhere it had arrive from, identifying that a particular employee had planted it a few days earlier."