America.. Revealing the circumstances of the arrest of a “Saudi” engineer on charges of “hiding a recording device” at the OpenAI company

- The US Department of Justice said on Wednesday that the authorities arrested an engineer with Saudi nationality who “hid a recording device inside the executive management meeting room at his workplace at OpenAI with the aim of recording sensitive communications related to the company’s superior intelligence technology.” The ministry added in a statement that “Abdulrahman Al-Fawzan (35 years old), a citizen of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was arrested on October 9, and appeared, on Tuesday, before a court in a preliminary session, after he was arrested and charged with using or attempting to use an electronic device to intercept verbal communications.”

According to the statement, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton said: “This grave situation highlights why winning the global race to superintelligence is a top national security priority, and the importance of President Trump’s leadership in creating a superintelligence force.” The statement quoted U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, Craig Misakian, as saying: “According to the complaint, Al-Fawzan had worked as an engineer for OpenAI since July 2025, and on September 30, OpenAI employees discovered a secret audio recording device placed in a USB port behind a television inside a conference room designated for executives in one of the company’s buildings in San Francisco.

OpenAI concluded that the device, which was hidden inside a roll of toilet paper, was installed on or around September 28, and that its contents were encrypted. CCTV footage from OpenAI's office showed Al-Fawzan near the executives' meeting room on multiple dates before the device was discovered, even though he did not have access to that room or participate in the meetings held there.

He stated, "According to the complaint, the meetings held in that room - where the recording device was found - often included discussions of highly confidential technical, business, and strategic information, including the company's research, product plans, and business development opportunities, as well as non-public information related to the company's technical progress, strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government dealings, and business relationships." He continued: “Prior to September 28, Al-Fouzan used a productivity tool to raise multiple inquiries about OpenAI building addresses, meeting rooms, room schedules and capacity, leadership and executive locations, and external partner meetings.

Furthermore, a “chatbot” account associated with Al-Fozan’s wife, which shared many identifiers and attributes with Al-Fozan’s personal chatbot account, entered commands and inquiries between September 24 and 30 related to building, customizing, installing, recording audio with, testing, anonymizing, and remotely accessing a device. According to the complaint, “Al-Fozan entered the executive conference room on October 5 and appeared to be looking behind a television set.” In which recording device No. 1 was installed, on approximately the same day, Al-Fawzan left a bag unattended in another room inside a building belonging to OpenAI, and the company’s security personnel found Al-Fawzan’s bag and opened it, to discover inside it - among other things that included his wallet and ID card - another recording device.

According to the statement, Al-Fawzan faces, if convicted, a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, followed by a period of supervised release for 3 years. It is noteworthy that OpenAI announced, on Tuesday, in a statement, that it had discovered an “advanced recording device” in one of its offices, placed by an employee who was later arrested.

She added that the device was intended for audio recording, and was equipped with advanced encryption techniques and a data transfer mechanism that was specifically designed to avoid detection. She continued that surveillance cameras caught Al-Fawzan entering the meeting room in which “top-secret” discussions were taking place.