A Woman Who Stowed Away on a Delta Trip to Paris Was Captured Again, This Time Trying to Enter Canada
Multiple law enforcement officials say CNN the lady who stowed away on a Delta flight from New York to Paris last month was brought into custody once more, this time attempting to sneak into Canada.
One law enforcement source said Svetlana Dali turned off her ankle monitor on Sunday. Monday she was taken into custody while on a Greyhound bus headed for Canada, according to sources. Her proximity to the border is not precisely known right now.
One of the individuals says Dali is currently under FBI custody and should be handed up to US Marshals in Buffalo, New York, on Tuesday. Regarding Dali being taken into custody, the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York refrained to comment.
Michael Schneider, Dali’s attorney, likewise withheld comments.
Another law enforcement source said Dali was staying with a roommate and the roommate claimed her missing when he noticed her ankle monitor on the floor.
That source said she is scheduled to come before a Buffalo court before going back to Brooklyn. Dali could spend up to five years in federal prison and is expected to be charged with bail jumping.
Previously accused of one count of a stowaway aboard a vessel or aircraft without permission relating to the November 26 incident on the Paris-bound trip, Dali is a US permanent resident and Russian national. She was let free without posting a bond, but she had a long list of restrictions including not leaving a specific region.
Judge Joseph Marutollo, her stowaway case’s judge, expressed reservations about Dali’s release following the prior event, but Schneider effectively advocated for her freedom.
“We do not think she poses any real flight risk. She does not seem to be able to slip on an aircraft every day, he remarked at a court hearing.
Saying the event was a security violation raising national security and safety issues, Prosecutor Brooke Theodora said her office thought Dali was a flight risk.
Marutollo decided Dali cannot leave the area she is staying in or face charges, cannot go to airports, must submit to GPS monitoring, and must turn over any travel documentation. He also mandated her follow a curfew and submit herself to any advised mental health care.
Dali had nowhere else to live, hence she was meant to live in Philadelphia with an acquaintance from her church who told the court he was ready to allow her live there. The person who reported Dali missing was that acquaintance.
How do officials describe Dali’s stowing away?
On November 26 Dali slipped boarded Delta Flight 264 from JFK International Airport in New York to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The US District Court for the Eastern District of New York claimed in a criminal complaint filed Thursday that Dali “stated that she did not have a plane ticket and that she intentionally evaded TSA security officials and Delta employees so that she could travel without buying one.”
According to the complaint, investigators watched surveillance footage at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and observed Dali turned away at a Transportation Security Agency security checkpoint due to lack of a boarding card. Five minutes later, though, she came back and used a lane for airline workers to pass the TSA screening.
She continued to a departing gate where “Delta agents, who were busy helping ticketed passengers board, did not stop her or ask her to present a boarding pass before she boarded the plane,” the lawsuit alleged.
According to one passenger, she tried to remain unnoticed and hid in the bathroom to keep out of the crew’s view.
Rob Jackson, a real estate broker from New York City, said CNN he overheard the flight attendants discussing it with the pilots. “They claimed this person would leave one lavatory and then stroll to another lavatory and spend a lot of time there.”
Jackson added the crew members did not notify passengers of the stowaway they were carrying until the aircraft touched down in the French capital.
“The first notice to passengers that there was a problem was when we stopped at the gate and they asked us all to remain seated because French police were about to board the plane to deal with “a severe security issue,” he added.
“Folks, this is the captain,” a voice on the plane’s intercom says in a video Jackson captured. “We are just waiting for the cops to come on board. They could have been here right now and guided us to keep everyone on the aircraft till we resolved the additional passenger on it.
French authorities detained Dali; they discovered she was unfit for entry into the nation and directed her back to the US.
Svetlana Dali is who? What do we know about her?
Records show Dali lived in the Philadelphia region at one point.
Authorities have not stated whether she was previously known to law enforcement or whether she tried to slip onto a plane before. Her length of time living in the United States is unknown.
Court documents show that Dali has lately launched two lawsuits claiming that she is a victim of military-grade chemical weapons and an abduction scheme.
A Paris airport officer told CNN she had sought Asylum in France some years ago.
She was supposed to get back to the US on November 30 after imprisonment at the Paris airport, but she was kicked off a Delta flight to New York after causing disruption before takeoff.
She finally left on December 4, accompanied by two French security agents.
She closed her eyes and listened to music, then periodically laid her head against the seat in front of her during the flight.
Dali refused to interact with CNN following their arrival.
CNN has tried to get in touch with Dali’s friends and relatives to learn more about her but hasn’t heard back.