US authorities have arrested an OpenAI engineer of Saudi descent for allegedly planting a covert recording device at the company conference room.
The Department of Justice released the identity as a 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, who was arrested in connection with the matter.
The AI company said after an employee found planting a device a few days ago, before it was discovered, and the FBI “moved quickly to make an arrest,” and that it has terminated the employee.
“At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data,” OpenAI said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on October 14.
“We take protecting our technology, data and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance,” it added.
According to the DOJ details, Alfozan was not sanctioned to access the executive conference room where the covert device was found.
However, the department added, the surveillance footage showed him near the conference room on multiple days before the device was found.
The DOJ said that on October 5, he entered the AI company executive room.
On the same day, a suspicious bag was also discovered in the OpenAI building that is linked to Alfozan.
The FBI officers discovered inside the bag his wallet, ID and another recording device similar to the one that was found in the executive conference room.
The DOJ also revealed that the device was wrapped in toilet paper, and its contents were encrypted.
The security incident highlights growing concerns around sensitive AI research as the OpenAI, Anthropic and other big AI giants scramble to address AI safety concerns.
For context, the ChatGPT maker, in a blog post on July 21, 2026, revealed that its models intruded into Hugging Face’s system, which hosts AI models and datasets, during testing of their models.
Last week, OpenAI defended its decision to fire three safety researchers, alleging a “significant breach of trust,” saying that the researchers “violated clear policies on handling sensitive information.
