Abdulrahman Alfozan, the former OpenAI engineer who federal authorities nabbed on Oct. 9 for allegedly planting a recording device in a conference room, reportedly booked a one-way flight to Saudi Arabia before his arrest.
The timing certainly doesn’t look like a coincidence. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco requested a judge keep court records in the case under seal on Oct. 8 because public disclosure “might jeopardize [Alfozan’s] arrest.”
“Indeed, the defendant, his wife, and a third family member have booked one-way tickets from San Francisco to Saudi Arabia (via Istanbul) for Monday, October 12, 2026, and the defendant has the means—and will have an incentive—to flee the United States sooner if he learns about this case before he is arrested,” prosecutors wrote.
The judge ultimately granted the sealing request, according to Bloomberg. It’s not clear when the tickets were purchased, but OpenAI has said it notified the FBI after employees found the hidden recording device plugged into a USB port on a TV on or around Sept. 30.
A Justice Department announcement detailed evidence including CCTV footage placing Alfozan near the conference room in question, his use of a “productivity tool” to pull data on OpenAI’s meeting rooms and their calendars, and logs from a “chatbot account” linked to Alfozan’s wife with a history of queries related to audio recording, encrypting SD card contents, and the recording device found at OpenAI. At one point, prosecutors added, Alfozan left a bag that contained a similar recording device, his wallet, and his ID unattended. OpenAI security subsequently discovered the bag and its contents.
Alfozan is a venture partner in Raed Ventures, a Saudi Arabian venture capital firm that also lists royal family member Prince Khalid bin Bader Al Saud as a venture partner. A former CIA officer who spoke with CNBC characterized Raed, which prosecutors haven’t accused of knowing about the bug, as “basically a state organ.” They added that if Alfozan’s bug is revealed to be state-sponsored, it means the AI and tech boom is so remarkable that “even the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has assessed that the risk is worth the gain to engage in economic espionage against a close ally.”
This incident is “probably the tip of the iceberg,” the former officer added.
