Woman who stowed away on Delta flight to Paris apprehended again, this time trying to get into Canada

By Mark Morales, Taylor Romine, Aaron Cooper and Chris Boyette, CNN

(CNN) — The woman who stowed away on a Delta flight from New York to Paris last month was taken into custody again, this time trying to sneak into Canada, multiple law enforcement sources tell CNN.

Svetlana Dali managed to cut off her ankle monitor on Sunday, according to one law enforcement source. She was then taken into custody Monday while on board a Greyhound bus that was bound for Canada, the sources said. It is not immediately clear how close to the border she was.

Dali is now in FBI custody and is expected to be turned over to US Marshals in Buffalo, New York, on Tuesday, according to one of the sources. The FBI and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York declined to comment on Dali being taken into custody.

Dali’s attorney, Michael Schneider, also declined to comment.

Dali was staying with a roommate and the roommate reported her missing when he saw her ankle monitor on the floor, another law enforcement source added.

She’s expected to go before a judge in Buffalo before she returns to Brooklyn, that source added. Dali is expected to be charged with bail jumping and could face up to five years in federal prison.

Dali, a US permanent resident and Russian national, was previously charged with one count of being a stowaway on a vessel or aircraft without consent related to the November 26 incident on the Paris-bound flight. She was released without paying bail but had a long list of conditions, including not traveling outside a designated area.

Judge Joseph Marutollo, the judge in her stowaway case, raised concerns about releasing Dali after the previous incident, but Schneider successfully argued for her release.

“We do not believe she is a serious risk of flight. … It’s not as if she can sneak on a flight every day,” he said during a court hearing.

Prosecutor Brooke Theodora said her office believed Dali was a flight risk, saying the incident was a security breach that raised national security and safety concerns.

Marutollo ruled Dali cannot go to airports, must submit to GPS monitoring, surrender any travel documents and cannot leave the area where she is staying or facing charges. He also ruled she must abide by a curfew and be evaluated and submit to any recommended mental health treatment.

Dali was supposed to live in Philadelphia with an acquaintance from her church who told the court he was willing to let her live there as she had nowhere else to go. That acquaintance was the person who reported Dali missing.

How authorities say Dali stowed away

Dali sneaked onto Delta Flight 264 from New York’s JFK International Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport on November 26.

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,” the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York alleged in a criminal complaint filed Thursday.

Investigators reviewed surveillance footage at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and noted Dali was turned away at a Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint because she didn’t have a boarding pass, according to the complaint. But five minutes later she returned and was able to get past the TSA checkpoint by going to a lane for airline employees.

She proceeded 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 complaint said.

Attempting to stay undiscovered, she hid in the bathroom to remain out of the crew’s sight, according to one passenger account.

“I overheard the flight attendants talking about it with the pilots,” New York City real estate broker Rob Jackson told CNN. “They said this person was in one lavatory and then would exit and walk to a different lavatory and go in there for a long time.”

Crew members did not alert passengers to the stowaway in their midst until the flight landed in the French capital, Jackson said.

“The first announcement to passengers that there was a problem was when we parked at the gate and they instructed us all to remain seated because French police were going to board the aircraft to deal with ‘a serious security issue,’” he said.

In a video recorded by Jackson, a voice on the plane’s intercom says, “Folks, this is the captain, we are just waiting for the police to come on board. They may be here now and they directed us to keep everyone on the airplane until we sort out the extra passenger that’s on the plane.”

Dali was detained by French police, who found she was ineligible to enter the country and ordered her to be sent back to the US.

Who is Svetlana Dali and what do we know about her?

Records indicate Dali once lived in the Philadelphia area.

Authorities have not said whether she had tried to sneak onto a plane before, or if she was previously known to law enforcement. It is unclear how long she had been in the United States.

Dali has filed two lawsuits in recent months alleging that she is the victim of military-grade chemical weapons and a kidnapping plot, according to court records.

She had applied for asylum in France a few years ago, a Paris airport official told CNN.

Following her detention at the Paris airport, she was scheduled to return to the US on November 30 – but was removed from a Delta flight to New York after creating a disturbance before takeoff.

She eventually took off on December 4 while flanked by two French security officials.

During the flight, she occasionally leaned her head against the seat in front of her and stared at the floor or closed her eyes and listened to music.

Dali declined to speak with CNN after landing.

CNN has attempted to contact Dali’s family and friends to find out more about her but have not heard back.

CNN’s Brynn Gingras, Holmes Lybrand, Saskya Vandoorne and Lex Harvey contirbuted to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story reversed the first and last names of assistant US Attorney Brooke Theodora.

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