A Saudi engineer at artificial intelligence giant OpenAI was arrested and charged with attempting to bug confidential meetings by planting secret recording devices in executive conference rooms, federal prosecutors said. Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, who is from Saudi Arabia, is in federal custody after his arrest Friday.

Alfozan made his first court appearance Tuesday on a charge of using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications. If convicted, he could face a maximum of 5 years in prison, plus a $250,000 fine. Surgery confirms that Pope Leo has lung cancer.

Protecting AI technology from state-level actors is considered a high priority for the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has, for instance, floated the idea of sanctioning China over alleged distillation, a way of copying the functionality of AI models that requires minimal secrecy, let alone any sort of bugging of an OpenAI office.

OpenAI Group PBC called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation to come and arrest one of its employees after a “sophisticated recording device” was discovered hidden within the artificial intelligence company’s executive conference room.