An engineer at OpenAI allegedly concealed an audio recording device in a piece of toilet paper and attached it behind a monitor inside an executive conference room at one of the company’s San Francisco offices, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, who federal prosecutors describe as a 35-year-old Saudi Arabian national and US permanent resident, allegedly spent several weeks querying an unspecified “productivity agent” and an “AI chatbot” to plan his alleged surveillance operation. He used an internal OpenAI tool to ask about meetings scheduled in the targeted conference room.
He also appears to have used a chatbot account associated with his spouse to ask various technical questions about setting up a covert audio recording device, according to prosecutors and the court filing.
OpenAI’s security team also allegedly found an additional recording device that had not been installed in Alfozan’s bag at the office.
Alfozan couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. He made an initial appearance in US district court in San Francisco on Tuesday on one charge of “use of an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications.” If convicted, Alfozan faces up to five years in prison. He joined OpenAI in July 2025 and was fired last Friday to coincide with his arrest.
Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel said in a statement that Alfozan aimed “to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence technology,” but prosecutors nor OpenAI have offered any information so far about a potential motive.
“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 statement on X. “We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance.”
OpenAI discovered the bug—which was allegedly “concealed in toilet paper” and “inserted into a USB port on the back of a television” in the conference room—on September 30 during a countersurveillance sweep.
Alfozan previously worked at a cargo logistics startup and at Meta, according to a purported LinkedIn profile for him. In a recent podcast interview, Alfozan said he was also part of a group of Saudi engineers in Silicon Valley who offered consulting services to Saudi organizations.
The LinkedIn profile lists Alfozan as a part-time “venture partner” at RAED Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Saudi Arabia. Neither RAED Ventures nor Meta immediately responded to WIRED’s request for comment.
