“For us it is a matter of national security,” U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said. He described the Bay Area and Silicon Valley as leaders in developing new technology, and said his office and the FBI are working to prosecute those accused of stealing American innovations.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national, was arrested on Oct. 9 and remains in federal custody, prosecutors said. He is charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept conversations.
The room he bugged was used for discussions about “highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans, and business-development opportunities, as well as nonpublic information about OpenAI’s technical progress and strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements, and commercial relationships,” according to the Justice Department’s account of the criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.
Alfozan was not authorized to enter the room or attend its meetings, and closed-circuit television footage from inside OpenAI’s office showed Alfozan near the executive conference room multiple times before the device was discovered.
OpenAI personnel discovered the recorder plugged into a USB port behind a television in an executive conference room at one of its San Francisco buildings, the Justice Department said. The device was concealed in toilet paper, was installed on or about Sept. 28, and its contents were encrypted.
A device, which the Justice Department says is a hidden audio recording device installed in an OpenAI executive conference room by Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national employed as an engineer at the AI company, at a location given as San Francisco, California, US, in this combination handout photo released on Oct. 13, 2026. Department of Justice/Handout via Reuters
The company said it fired the employee and that there were “no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data.”
Investigators also examined security footage. Prosecutors said that on Oct. 5, Alfozan allegedly entered the room and looked behind the television, where investigators found the recorder.
That day, security personnel found another similar recorder inside a bag Alfozan left unattended elsewhere in an OpenAI building. His wallet and identification were also inside, according to the Justice Department.
The investigation also extended to his online activity. The department said a chatbot account linked to his spouse also asked about building, hiding, and remotely accessing recording equipment between Sept. 24 and 30.
“Any attempt to illicitly obtain protected information from U.S. super intelligence and technology companies threatens both American innovation and the national security interests those advancements support,” said Special Agent in Charge Scott Schelble of the FBI San Francisco Field Office.
