Hidden Recorder at OpenAI, Engineer Arrested
A recording device hidden behind a television in a room reserved for OpenAI executives, a second device found in an employee’s bag, and the company’s own artificial intelligence tools used to reconstruct what happened.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old OpenAI engineer and Saudi citizen, has been arrested by the FBI on allegations that he installed the device intended to secretly record conversations inside one of the company’s San Francisco offices. Alfozan, who had worked for OpenAI since July 2025, was arrested on October 9 and made his first appearance in federal court on Tuesday. He is currently being held in custody and is due back in court on October 19 for a detention hearing.
The recorder behind the television
The device was discovered on September 30 in an executive conference room, connected to a USB port on the back of a television and concealed inside toilet paper. According to the Justice Department, it had been installed two days earlier and the data stored on it was encrypted. It was not an ordinary meeting room. According to the criminal complaint, it regularly hosted meetings where highly confidential information was discussed, including proprietary research, new products, business opportunities, relationships with governments and outside partners, and strategic decisions concerning OpenAI’s technological development.
Internal security cameras allegedly captured Alfozan near the room on several occasions, even though he was not authorized to attend the meetings held there. On October 5, he allegedly entered the room again and looked behind the television at the spot where the device had been placed.
Searches about meeting rooms and a second device
According to investigators, in the weeks before the device was discovered, Alfozan used an AI-powered productivity tool to search for information about OpenAI buildings, meeting rooms, calendars and locations used for meetings involving executives and outside partners. Another detail in the complaint is even more unusual: a chatbot account associated with the engineer’s wife, which shared several identifiers with his account, allegedly searched for information on how to build a continuous audio recorder, improve remote listening capabilities, connect it to Wi-Fi and encrypt its memory card. Some of the questions reportedly concerned specific features of the device later found in the office. On October 5, OpenAI security also found a second recording device, similar to the first, inside a bag Alfozan had left unattended.
OpenAI used its own AI to investigate
OpenAI says it used its own internal AI models to understand how the device worked and help trace its origin. According to the company, the recorder featured advanced encryption systems and functions for audio monitoring and data transfer designed to make detection more difficult. The company also says it gathered evidence suggesting that the employee intended to place additional devices in sensitive areas of its offices. After reconstructing the events, OpenAI fired Alfozan and referred the case to the FBI.
