The Russian woman who stowed away on a Delta flight to Paris has been caught again trying to sneak into Canada.
Svetlana Dali, 57, was taken into custody at the US border with Canada in Buffalo, New York on Monday, WGRZ reports.
According to law enforcement sources who spoke to CNN, the woman allegedly managed to remove her ankle monitor on Sunday. Her roommate in Philadelphia discovered the monitor on the floor and subsequently reported her as missing.
Dali, a US permanent resident, then boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Canada, from which she was apprehended.
She is now in FBI custody, and is expected to be turned over to US Marshals in Buffalo on Tuesday.
After the incident, she would appear in front of a judge in a city in northern New York and is likely to face charges for bail jumping, which could result in a sentence of up to five years in prison.
After the court hearing, she is expected to be transported back to Brooklyn, where she is currently dealing with a charge of stowing away on a vessel or aircraft without authorization.
The former real estate attorney was released last week without having to pay bail, but was required to follow a long list of conditions – including not traveling outside of a designated area after prosecutors argued Dali had previously tried to get on to planes at multiple domestic airports and an international one.
Svetlana Dali, 57, was taken into custody at the US border with Canada in Buffalo, New York on Monday
She was already facing charges for stowing away on a flight from New York’s John F Kennedy Airport to Paris, France on November 26
Her most recent effort was in February this year in Miami when she went into the international arrivals area and walked into a customs zone in an effort to get to departures, prosecutors argued in court.
A police report claims that Dali ‘came into international arrivals’ at Miami airport and ‘got into a customs area and was trying to get through to departures’.
She then proved successful on November 26, when Dali managed to avoid Transportation Security Administration lines and airline checks at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport to sneak onto a Delta flight to Paris.
A criminal complaint claims she hid amid a flight crew entering in a special lane for airline employees as she underwent security screening, and never had to display a ticket for the flight.
Dali also allegedly dodged an airline employee scanning tickets to board the flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport, only to be discovered onboard the flight once it was in the air.
At one point, she reportedly sat in an empty seat, but at other times she used different bathrooms to disguise the fact she didn’t have a ticket, CNN has reported.
Jairam Dookoo, who was onboard the flight, also said Dali initially pretended to try to look for her documents before she got into an argument with airline staff.
‘She took 10 minutes to just find her bags, to try and find her boarding pass,’ he told ABC News. ‘Which she did not have at all.’
Passengers filmed her throughout the flight migrating back and forth between the plane’s bathrooms since she didn’t have a seat
She allegedly became ‘belligerent’ and screamed at staff trying to question her
When Dali arrived at Paris’ Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, French authorities said she was ‘refused entry for lack of valid travel document, and was placed in a waiting area.’
Because she held a valid US residence, French officials moved to send her back on a return flight to JFK days later, however Dali was intent on remaining outside the US.
Footage taken by passengers onboard the return flight showed Dali being unruly with airline staff even before the jet got off the ground, as passengers said she began freaking out almost instantly.
Dali even claimed she needed ‘asylum’ as she protested her deportation, the footage shows.
‘I do not want to go back to the USA. Only a judge can make me go back to the USA,’ Dali could be heard screaming in the footage.
But French authorities refused her mysterious plea for asylum there, and sent her back to the US, where she was immediately arrested and taken into federal custody.
French officials also confirmed Dali previously applied for asylum in France, but did not clarify when she applied or if it was ever granted.
Dali had to turn over her passport following the arrest – which her court-appointed attorney argued was proof she was not a flight risk
Dali appeared in court earlier this month to face charges for being a stowaway, when Judge Joseph Martullo raised concerns about releasing Dali.
He said he was ‘deeply concerned there is a risk of flight,’ but her court-appointed attorney, Michael Schneider, successfully argued that it was unlikely she would flee.
‘It’s not as if she can sneak on a flight every day,’ he claimed, according to CNN.
He went on to liken the charge against her to jumping the turnstile in New York City’s subway system, as he spoke about the allegedly harsh conditions Dali was facing at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, according to WGRZ.
‘She was placed in a room that was very cold,’ Schneider claimed.
‘Some time after leaving France she was poisoned. She vomited a lot last night,’ he added. ‘She believes if she stays at the MDC again her life will be in danger’.
The lawyer also claimed that Dali lost consciousness after arriving back in the US, and would not take any medication in case it interacted with the poison in her body.
He urged the court to give Dali the ‘benefit of the doubt’ and said that she understood the gravity of the matter.
Dali (pictured leaving court on December 6) was let free without bail
Schneider claimed at the time that she would not make things worse for herself by committing another offense and noted that she was forced to give up her passport.
He further argued that Dali’s actions on November 26 could have been the result of a mental health episode – and that Dali telling law enforcement about her previous attempts to board planes boiled down to that as well.
Yet prosecutor Brooke Theodora disagreed, saying that Dali’s actions had raised ‘very significant national security concerns and significant public safety risks’.
Silouan Mathew then confirmed that Dali would be staying with him, saying they had met through church – and Martullo agreed to let her go if she were to wear a GPS monitor, abide by a curfew and submit to a mental health evaluation.
The Transportation Security Administration, meanwhile, has said it will ‘independently review the circumstances of this incident,’ referring to the November 26 stowaway case.
Delta Air Lines also said that its own review concluded that its security infrastructure was sound and that ‘deviation from standard procedures is the root cause of this event.’
It said it would take measures to ensure a breach like that does not occur again, saying: ‘Nothing is of greater importance than safety and security.’
