OpenAI engineer arrested over alleged listening device

On 14 October 2026, The Verge reported that a 35-year-old Saudi engineer at OpenAI, Abdulrahman Alfozan, was arrested on suspicion of installing a recording device in an executive meeting room, charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications. The report said the device was found plugged into the USB port of a meeting-room television, installed around 28 September, covered with toilet paper and encrypted; OpenAI said it used its own models to analyse the device's origin, identified an employee who had placed it days earlier, then fired the employee and handed the matter to the FBI. Later the same day, The Decoder reported that the US Department of Justice said Alfozan was arrested on 9 October on suspicion of hiding a recording device wrapped in toilet paper in the USB port of an executive meeting-room television, with another recording device found in his bag. On 15 October, Ars Technica reported that the FBI arrested Alfozan, accusing him of inserting a USB recording device wrapped in toilet paper into the back of a television in a restricted executive meeting room to spy on OpenAI and potentially leak trade secrets and threaten national security.

Written by AI from the reports · updated 2 d ago