The Russian woman 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 U.S. border with Canada on Monday in Buffalo, New York. WGRZ reports.
Apparently, on Sunday, she managed to cut off her ankle monitor, which her roommate from Philadelphia found on the floor. That’s when he reported her missing, law enforcement sources said. told CNN.
Dali, a permanent resident of the US, then boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Canada, where she was apprehended.
She is now in FBI custody and is expected to be turned over to the US Marshals in Buffalo on Tuesday.
Dali would then appear in court in upstate New York City and is expected to be charged with bail jumping, which could land her behind bars for years.
After her hearing, Dali would be sent back to Brooklyn, where she is suspected of stowawaying on a ship or plane without permission.
The former real estate lawyer was released last week without having to post bail but had to adhere to a long list of conditions – including not traveling outside a designated area after prosecutors alleged Dali had previously tried to board planes at multiple domestic airports and one international .
Svetlana Dali, 57, was taken into custody Monday at the U.S. border with Canada in Buffalo, New York
She was already charged for hiding on a flight from New York’s John F Kennedy Airport to Paris, France, on November 26.
Her most recent attempt was in Miami in February this year, when she entered the international arrivals area and walked into a customs area in an attempt to reach the departure point, prosecutors argued in court.
A police report claims Dali “entered international arrivals” at Miami airport and “entered a customs area and attempted to force his way through to departure.”
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.
According to a criminal complaint, she hid among flight crew members who entered a special lane for airline crews while undergoing a security check, and was never required to present a ticket for the flight.
Dali is also said to have evaded an airline employee who was scanning tickets to board the flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport, but was discovered on board 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 that she did not have a ticket, CNN reports.
Jairam Dookoo, who was on board the flight, also said Dali initially pretended to try to find her documents before getting into an argument with airline staff.
“It took her 10 minutes to find her bags and find her boarding pass,” he told ABC News. “Which she didn’t have at all.”
Passengers filmed her during the flight as she migrated back and forth between the plane’s bathrooms because she didn’t have a seat
She reportedly became ‘belligerent’ and shouted at staff who tried to question her
When Dali arrived at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, French authorities said she was “denied entry for lack of a valid travel document and placed in a waiting area.”
Since she had a valid U.S. residency permit, French officials decided to send her back a few days later on a return flight to JFK, but Dali planned to stay outside the U.S.
Footage taken by passengers on board the return flight showed Dali being unruly with airline staff even before the plane left the ground, as passengers said she began to panic almost immediately.
Dali even claimed she needed ‘asylum’ as she protested her deportation, the footage shows.
‘I don’t want to go back to the US. Only a judge can force me to go back to the US,” Dali could be heard shouting on the footage.
But French authorities there denied her mysterious asylum request and sent her back to the US, where she was immediately arrested and taken into federal custody.
French officials also confirmed that Dali had previously applied for asylum in France, but did not clarify when she applied or if it was ever granted.
Dali was forced to surrender her passport after the arrest – which her court-appointed lawyer said was proof she was not a flight risk
Dali appeared in court earlier this month on stowaway charges, when Judge Joseph Martullo expressed concern about Dali’s release.
He said he was “deeply concerned that there was a risk of flight,” but her court-appointed attorney, Michael Schneider, successfully argued that she was unlikely to flee.
“It’s not like she can sneak a flight every day,” he claimed, according to CNN.
He then compared the charges against her to jumping the turnstile on the New York City subway system, while talking about the allegedly harsh conditions Dali faced at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, according to WGRZ.
“She was put in a room that was very cold,” Schneider alleged.
‘Some time after leaving France she was poisoned. She threw up a lot last night,” he added. “She believes that if she remains in the MDC again, her life will be in danger.”
The lawyer also claimed that Dali lost consciousness after returning to the US, and would not take medication if it would interact with the poison in her body.
He urged the court to give Dali the “benefit of the doubt” and said it understood the seriousness of the case.
Dali (pictured leaving court on December 6) was released without bail
Schneider claimed at the time that she would not make matters worse for herself by committing another offense and noted that she had been forced to surrender 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 police about her previous attempts to board a plane amounted to that.
Yet prosecutor Brooke Theodora disagreed, saying Dali’s actions had raised “very significant national security concerns and significant risks to public safety.”
Silouan Mathew then confirmed that Dali would be staying with him, saying they met through church – and Martullo agreed to let her go if she would wear a GPS monitor, adhere to a curfew and submit to a mental health evaluation.
The Transportation Security Administration, meanwhile, said it will “independently investigate the circumstances of this incident,” referring to the Nov. 26 stowaway case.
Delta Air Lines also said its own investigation found its safety infrastructure was sound and that “deviation from standard operating procedures is the root cause of this event.”
It said it would take steps to ensure such a breach does not occur again, saying: “Nothing is more important than safety and security.”