Prosecutors charged Alfozan with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications, carrying up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. OpenAI’s technical surveillance team discovered a $14 Seeed Xiao ESP32-S3 Sense board wrapped in toilet paper and plugged into a television USB port on Sept. 30, about two days after it was installed. A camera later recorded Alfozan checking behind the television on Oct. 5, the same day security staff found a second recorder inside an unattended bag alongside his wallet and ID.
Before installing the encrypted device, Alfozan allegedly spent a month querying an internal AI tool about executive meeting locations and calendars, while a chatbot account linked to his spouse submitted prompts from Sept. 24 to Sept. 30 on building, hiding and remotely accessing a continuous audio recorder. OpenAI fired Alfozan, who joined the product team in July 2025, and said it used its own AI models to help identify him and found no indication that model weights, source code or customer data were accessed or taken. He remains in federal custody ahead of an Oct. 19 detention hearing.