A woman who was charged as a stowaway after she was accused of boarding a New York-to-Paris flight last month without a ticket has been arrested in New York near the Canadian border after she cut off her ankle bracelet, authorities said Monday.
Svetlana Dali was arrested near Buffalo, a senior official briefed on the matter told NBC News. The official said the woman, who is alleged to have cut off her ankle monitor while she was with her boyfriend near Philadelphia, took a Greyhound bus to Buffalo.
Dali was charged with being a stowaway and arraigned this month in federal court after she was accused of sneaking onto a Delta flight from New York City to Paris last month.
The federal court had ordered her to have her whereabouts monitored by a GPS ankle bracelet.
A second official said Dali was stopped by Canadian authorities trying to cross the border and was in FBI custody. She cut off her ankle bracelet Sunday, the second official said.
A court appearance is scheduled Tuesday before she is expected to be turned over to federal officials in New York’s Eastern District, a Western District court spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment Monday.
Dali’s attorney in the stowaway case did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
Officials say that on Nov. 26, during the Thanksgiving travel rush, Dali boarded Delta Flight 264 from John F. Kennedy International Airport en route to Charles de Gaulle Airport, according to the FBI and a federal complaint.
She bypassed two security and ticketing checkpoints before she made it on board, a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration has said. She completed a full security screening before she boarded, the spokesperson said, meaning she didn’t have any prohibited items and didn’t pose a security threat.
Dali tried to get into the security line, but a TSA agent rejected her from passing when she failed to show her boarding pass, the complaint said. Five minutes later, she successfully got in the security line by entering through a special lane for airline workers, the complaint said.
“Delta agents, who were busy helping ticketed passengers board, did not stop her or ask her to present a boarding pass,” the complaint said.
Delta employees learned Dali wasn’t supposed to be on the flight. They asked her for her boarding pass, which she couldn’t show, and then notified French law enforcement.
French authorities detained her when the flight landed, the FBI complaint said. She was denied entry to the country because she didn’t have a valid travel document or visa, a spokesperson for France’s border police has said.
When the FBI interviewed her, Dali admitted taking the flight without a boarding pass and acknowledged her actions were illegal, the complaint said.
If convicted, Dali could face up to five years in prison, a fine or both.
