FBI arrests OpenAI engineer accused of planting hidden recorder in executive room

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on 13 October 2026 that Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a national of Saudi Arabia and an OpenAI engineer since July 2025, was arrested on 9 October and made an initial federal court appearance the day of the announcement. He is charged with using or endeavouring to use a device to intercept oral communications.

What investigators allege

According to the complaint summarised by DOJ: on or about 30 September, OpenAI staff found a surreptitious audio recorder (Recording Device 1) in a USB port behind a television in an executive conference room in San Francisco. The device had been concealed in toilet paper, was installed around 28 September, and its contents were encrypted. Meetings in that room often covered highly confidential technical, commercial and strategic matters. CCTV allegedly showed Alfozan near the room on multiple dates though he lacked authority to attend executive meetings there. On 5 October he allegedly re-entered and looked behind the TV; the same day, security found a similar second device in an unattended bag with his wallet and ID.

Chatbot prompts cited in the complaint

DOJ says that before 28 September Alfozan used a productivity tool to query building addresses, meeting rooms and “leadership and exec” locations. A chatbot account associated with his spouse — sharing identifiers with his own account — allegedly submitted prompts about building, customising, installing, obfuscating and remotely accessing continuous audio recorders, including queries tied to Device 1’s custom header and MAC address around 27–28 September.

Penalties and framing

If convicted, Alfozan faces up to 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and 3 years of supervised release. FBI Director Kash Patel and DNI Jay Clayton framed the case as protecting U.S. “super intelligence” intellectual property. These are allegations in a criminal complaint; Alfozan has not been convicted. OpenAI’s earlier public comments that its models helped identify a hidden office recorder align with the discovery timeline but are secondary to the DOJ charging documents.