A gifted engineer. A love for Saudi Arabia. A bugging device wrapped in toilet paper.

Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national employed as an OpenAI engineer, looks behind a television where a recording device had been placed in a conference room.

DOJ/Reuters Abdulrahman Alfozan loved Saudi Arabia.

One day before arresting the former OpenAI engineer on charges of bugging the office , the Justice Department worried he would flee back to his home country.

Alfozan, his wife, and another family member had already booked one-way tickets, the department said in a court filing.

It wouldn't be unusual for Alfozan's thoughts to return to the Gulf.

The idea of moving back had followed him through his years working in tech.

It inspired him to found a nonprofit that connects Silicon Valley talent with Saudi companies, and to join a WhatsApp group with other Gulf professionals.

But he stayed in the US for one big reason, he said in a translated interview released in September, in which he detailed his life and work.

"The best place for me to build technical expertise was Silicon Valley," Alfozan said.

"You learn from the source, then bring those skills and experiences back home." Now, about a year after Alfozan took a job at OpenAI, the company said that it found a recording device "concealed in toilet paper." The device was placed on the back of a television in an executive conference room, according to a complaint filed in the Northern District of California.

OpenAI wrote on X that it fired the employee — unnamed at the time — and referred the case to the FBI.

The Justice Department arrested Alfozan, who is 35, on October 9 and charged him with using an electronic device to intercept oral communications.

Alfozan has not yet filed a plea.

His lawyer, William Pernik, said in a statement that the allegations "appear wholly out of character for him." "Mr.