Saudi OpenAI employee arrested by FBI for allegedly planting recording device
According to reports from the Department of Justice and OpenAI itself, an employee of theirs has been arrested for the crime of planting a “sophisticated recording device” inside its executive conference room.
The Department of Justice’s report named the accused as 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, a national of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The report said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation “moved quickly to make an arrest” after finding the device a few days after it was planted.
A statement from FBI director Kash Patel said that 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.”
The Department of Justice said in their statement that footage captured on security cameras were allegedly placed by Alfozan near the conference room several times before the device was discovered. Despite not having clearance to access the room, Alfozan was seen entering the conference room on October 5th.
On the same day, another bag was discovered in the OpenAI headquarters that contained a wallet and ID belonging to Alfozan, along with a recording device similar to the one found in the conference room.
While Alfozan’s employment at OpenAI was terminated, he is also listed as a partner at Raed Ventures.
The company is a venture capital firm that focuses on the Middle East and North Africa, which also boasts H.H Prince Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud as a venture partner.
The announcement of Alfozan as a partner of Raed Ventures also states that he previously worked at Meta, Microsoft and SAP after studying computer science and engineering at MIT.
OpenAI said in their statement about the security breach, “At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. We take protecting our technology, data and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance.”