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Wednesday, October 14, 2026

The File

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Justice · Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Prosecutors charge an OpenAI engineer with hiding a recorder

The File desk · Oct 14, 2026, 10:58 AM UTC

Status

Confirmed as a criminal complaint, from a Justice Department release dated Oct. 13, 2026. A complaint is an allegation. Abdulrahman Alfozan is presumed innocent. The release does not cite a statute section. The local U.S. attorney page was blocked by a bot check.

  • Confirmed

    The department says Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national and an OpenAI engineer, was arrested Oct. 9 and appeared in federal court Oct. 13. He is charged with using or trying to use a device to intercept oral communications.

  • Confirmed

    If convicted, the release says, the maximum is 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and 3 years of supervised release.

The Justice Department said Tuesday that an OpenAI engineer, Abdulrahman Alfozan, was arrested and charged with using a device to secretly record spoken conversations. Prosecutors say a hidden recorder, wrapped in toilet paper, was found in a USB port on a television in an executive conference room at an OpenAI building in San Francisco. Alfozan, 35, is a Saudi national. He was arrested Oct. 9 and appeared in court Oct. 13. A complaint is only an allegation. He is presumed innocent. The release does not name a statute section.

The Office of Public Affairs release is dated Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, and marked updated that day. The Northern District of California page for the same announcement returned a bot wall, not the release. This account uses the public-affairs text.

The charge, in the release’s words, is using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications. No section number is printed. This story does not add one.

According to the complaint, as the release recounts it, Alfozan had been an engineer at OpenAI since July 2025. On or about Sept. 30, staff found the recorder in the conference room. OpenAI determined it was installed on or about Sept. 28, concealed in toilet paper, and that its contents were encrypted. The release says meetings in that room covered confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including research, product plans, and government and commercial relationships.

The complaint alleges that closed-circuit video showed Alfozan near the room on several dates before the device was found, and that he had no authority to be in those meetings. It also alleges that before Sept. 28 he used a workplace tool to ask about building addresses, meeting rooms, calendars, and “leadership and exec” locations.

The release says a chatbot account associated with his spouse, sharing identifiers with his own account, submitted prompts between Sept. 24 and Sept. 30 about building a continuous audio recorder, customizing Wi-Fi, improving live listening, and encrypting an SD card. The same account, the release says, asked about the device’s custom header and MAC address between Sept. 27 and Sept. 28. Those sentences are allegations in the complaint.

The complaint further alleges that on Oct. 5 Alfozan went into the conference room and looked behind the television. The same day, the release says, he left a bag in a different room. Security found a second, similar recorder in the bag, along with his wallet and ID.

If convicted, the maximum is 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, then 3 years of supervised release. The FBI is investigating. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Parker is prosecuting the case with Trial Attorney Kate Tagert of the National Security Division.

The release says the prosecution supports

, which it describes as meant to support American superiority in super intelligence technology. This desk did not open the memorandum. Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and FBI Director Kash Patel are quoted on protecting that technology. Those sentences are theirs. U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian called the conduct alleged in the complaint a matter of national security.

What is still unknown or disputed

Primary sources

Every claim in this story is drawn from the documents below. If a fetch failed, that is recorded on the card.

  1. Source 1

    Saudi National Arrested for Installing Surreptitious Audio Recording Device at OpenAI

    U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs · October 13, 2026

    Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a national of Saudi Arabia, was arrested on Oct. 9 and made his initial appearance in federal court Oct. 13. He is charged with using or endeavoring to use a device to intercept oral communications. If convicted, the maximum is 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/saudi-national-arrested-installing-surreptitious-audio-recording-device-openai