From Decrypt · By Jose Antonio Lanz
In brief
The FBI arrested OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan on Oct. 9 for allegedly planting a hidden audio recorder in an executive conference room at the OpenAI’s San Francisco offices.
Prosecutors say a chatbot account tied to his spouse asked how to build, hide, and remotely access a continuous audio recorder days before the device was installed.
OpenAI says its models helped identify him and that it has no indication he took model weights, source code, or customer data.
An OpenAI engineer is in federal custody after allegedly hiding an encrypted audio recorder behind a television in one of the company's executive conference rooms in San Francisco. OpenAI says its own AI models helped figure out who put it there.
“We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices,” OpenAI said in a statement on X. “We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier.”
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The Justice Department identified the suspect as Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national who has worked as an engineer at OpenAI since July 2025. He was arrested on Oct. 9, charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications, and made his initial appearance in federal court on Tuesday.
“We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest,” OpenAI said. “The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.”
A note from our research leaders:
Last week we parted ways with Jasmine, Mikita, and Tomek after a thorough investigation found they violated clear policies on handling sensitive information. Our internal investigation uncovered a significant breach of trust beyond what’s…
— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) October 9, 2026
According to the criminal complaint, OpenAI staff found the recorder on or around Sept. 30, plugged into a USB port on the back of a TV and wrapped in toilet paper. Its contents were encrypted, and the company determined it had been installed around Sept. 28.
Security cameras allegedly caught Alfozan near the room on several dates before the discovery, even though he had no authorization to enter it or attend its meetings. Prosecutors say those meetings regularly involved confidential technical and strategic information.
Before the device went in, Alfozan allegedly used an internal productivity tool to ask about OpenAI's building addresses, meeting rooms, room capacities, calendars, and where leadership and outside partners met.