![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792074611_555_jp-1730786685-rotated.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 15 Oct 202615 Oct 2026<\/p>\n
The Saudi national accused of bugging OpenAI\u2019s headquarters booked a one-way flight to Saudi Arabia before his arrest, US prosecutors have alleged.<\/p>\n
Abdulrahman Alfozan, a former OpenAI engineer, had been scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia with his wife and another family member on October 12, prosecutors said in a court filing unsealed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
The FBI arrested Alfozan, who worked at OpenAI for about 15 months until his termination last week, on October 9, after OpenAI personnel reported the discovery of a hidden listening device in a conference room at the company\u2019s San Francisco headquarters.<\/p>\n
Alfozan, 35, has been charged with \u201cusing or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications\u201d.<\/p>\n
The offence carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors disclosed the alleged flight booking to a judge on October 8 in a motion seeking to seal the criminal complaint against Alfozan, arguing he had the \u201cmeans \u2013 and will have an incentive \u2013 to flee\u201d the United States.<\/p>\n
William Pernik, Alfozan\u2019s lawyer, said he and his client planned to contest the criminal allegations and his client\u2019s ongoing detention in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe trust that the American justice system will treat our client fairly, despite the narrative painted in the media at this time,\u201d Pernik told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur client is a well regarded professional with long standing ties to the community,\u201d Pernik added.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is presumed innocent and is entitled to fair treatment and due process of law. The emphasis on his national origin and therefore suggestions of lack of trustworthiness or flight risk harken back to dark chapters of our nation\u2019s history that we intend to fight fully.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alfozan\u2019s arrest has shone a spotlight on concerns that frontier tech firms are a target for spying and industrial espionage amid the global race to gain an upper hand in AI.<\/p>\n
Before joining OpenAI in July last year, Alfozan worked as a systems engineer at Meta and interned at Microsoft, according to a LinkedIn profile in his name.<\/p>\n
Alfozan is also listed as a venture partner at Raed Ventures, a Riyadh-based venture capital firm whose other partners include Prince Khalid bin Bader al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family.<\/p>\n
In a statement announcing Alfozan\u2019s appointment in February 2025, Raed Ventures described the engineer as \u201ca seasoned professional with extensive experience in tech startups\u201d and said his role would involve \u201cidentifying promising investment opportunities and supporting startups on their journey toward growth and success\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan was due to fly to Saudi Arabia on October 12, US prosecutors say in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,2411,924,1294,59,50,86,56,54,158,55,3544],"class_list":["post-803459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-crime","tag-economy","tag-gb","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}