An OpenAI engineer has been arrested on suspicion of hiding an audio record equipment in an administrator gathering area at the company’s San Francisco headquarters, national prosecutors stated Tuesday.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national, was arrested Friday and charged alongside using or attempting to use a equipment to obstruct oral communications. He made his first appearance in national court Tuesday and remains in custody.
An unattended bag established in the company’s offices contained Alfozan’s wallet and identification, as fine as a record device, according to the U.S. attorney’s agency in San Francisco.
Alfozan has worked as an engineer at OpenAI since July 2025, prosecutors said.
OpenAI personnel established the equipment Sept. 30. It was plugged into a USB harbor on the rear of a tv in an administrator gathering area and had been hidden in toilet paper, the grievance says. The business resolute it was installed about Sept. 28, and its contents were encrypted.
Surveillance footage shows Alfozan near the area on multiple dates before the discovery, although he was not authorized to act the area or act meetings there, prosecutors said. Meetings in the area frequently engaged confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including proprietary research, merchandise plans, and authorities engagements, according to the complaint.
Before the equipment was installed, Alfozan used a efficiency tool to ask concerning OpenAI’s construction addresses, gathering rooms, area capacities, and calendars, as fine as the locations of guidance and exterior partner meetings, the grievance alleges.
A chatbot document tied to Alfozan’s spouse, which shared identifiers alongside his own account, submitted prompts between Sept. 24 and Sept. 30 concerning building, installing, obscuring, and remotely accessing a record device, prosecutors said. Queries included how to “build a uninterrupted audio recorder” and “encrypt the SD card,” prosecutors claimed. On Sept. 27 and 28, the document asked concerning the particular equipment that was afterward found, including its distinctive MAC address.
On Oct. 5, the grievance says, Alfozan entered the gathering area and appeared to appearance rearward the television. That identical day, he allegedly remaining a bag unattended in a distinct room. Security personnel who opened it established his wallet and ID, alongside alongside a second record equipment akin to the first.
“For us it is a matter of national security,” U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian stated in a statement.
FBI Director Kash Patel stated protecting U.S. AI innovation is among the bureau’s highest counterintelligence priorities. Scott Schelble, particular delegate in accusation of the FBI’s San Francisco site office, stated the agency is committed to protecting delicate investigation and proprietary technology.
If convicted, Alfozan faces up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine, followed by three years of supervised release.
The case is being prosecuted by the National Security, Cyber & Special Prosecutions Section of the U.S. attorney’s agency for the Northern District of California.
OpenAI said on X (opens in new tab) that following discovering the device, workforce used the company’s AI models to decide what it was and anywhere it came from, and referred the matter to the FBI. The business thanked the agents and prosecutors who “moved quickly to create an arrest.”
According to OpenAI, its specialized surveillance countermeasures squad established the equipment during a clear of a gathering room.
OpenAI described the equipment as advanced and designed to evade detection, saying it had advanced encryption, audio monitoring capabilities, and a scheme for transferring data in a way meant to evade monitoring. The business stated investigators used its models to analyze forensic images of the device’s retention and measure changes in the underlying data.
The business stated it has evidence that Alfozan intended to location another record devices in delicate spaces to secretly document meetings.
According to OpenAI, Alfozan was a associate of the merchandise team. The business stated it coordinated the timing of his firing alongside the FBI to evade disrupting the investigation, and he was terminated Friday, the day he was arrested. Between Sept. 30 and that date, OpenAI said, it gradually restricted his admission to systems and spaces, afterward suspended his bodily and network access, placed him on leave, and secured his company-issued equipment.
A YouTube video final duration touted him as the lone Saudi employee at OpenAI.
“Honestly, this one twelvemonth felt akin five years anyplace else,” he stated in reply to a inquiry concerning his experience.
“The idea of AI is that it handles things one power not desire to do, so they can concentration on tasks or hobbies they bask additional or activity they obtain pleaseure in and let it do the tedious tasks,” Alfozan stated afterward in the video.
A LinkedIn overview that matches Alfozan’s name lists his OpenAI function as engineering guide on the company’s AI agents phase
Before joining OpenAI, he was a founding engineer at Nash, an AI infrastructure business for logistics, from 2022 to August 2025, according to the LinkedIn profile. From 2017 to 2022, he was a elder systems engineer at Meta. His before experience, according to the profile, includes a stint as a systems engineer at Reach Labs, a wireless power startup in Y Combinator’s summer 2015 batch, and internships at Microsoft, SAP in Berlin and Akamai Technologies.
He has a master’s flat in data discipline from UC Berkeley, the LinkedIn overview says.
A man in the passenger place of a car at Alfozan’s Millbrae residence stated that the family did not desire to conversation to reporters.
OpenAI stated it has no sign that Alfozan improperly accessed or took example weights, origin code, or client data and has not seen action that compromised the safety of its products or customers’ information. The business stated it volition continue to assistance the FBI’s investigation.
OpenAI stated it treats protecting its technology, data and group “as a matter of national importance” and called the case an example of how AI can oppose advanced safety threats.
A detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse is set for Oct. 19.
