IT之家 (ITHome) News on October 15: According to a report by Business Insider early today (the 15th), U.S. federal prosecutors disclosed that former engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi Arabian national suspected of secretly installing recording devices at OpenAI's office, had booked a one-way ticket back to Saudi Arabia.
Newly unsealed court documents show that the U.S. federal government had worried that news of the case might leak, affecting the prosecution of Alfozan.
In court documents filed on October 8, Craig Missakian and other federal prosecutors for the Northern District of California stated: “The defendant, his wife, and another family member booked one-way tickets departing from San Francisco on Monday, October 12, 2026, via Istanbul to Saudi Arabia.”
Prosecutors worried that if Alfozan learned he was under investigation before being arrested,he had the ability to leave the United States early, as well as the motive to flee the United States。
According to IT之家's understanding, the FBI arrested Alfozan on local time October 9. On local time the 14th, he made his first court appearance, and the U.S. government formally announced the charges against him.
Alfozan is suspected of using electronic, mechanical, or other devices to eavesdrop on conversations and faces one felony charge,with a maximum sentence of 5 years。
According to the criminal complaint, OpenAI discovereda secretly installed USB deviceon the back of a television in an executive conference room, wrapped in toilet paper to conceal the device's presence.
OpenAI's statement said: “We used our own models to analyze the device and its origins, and ultimately determined that an employee had installed the device a few days earlier.”
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