Authorities said Monday that a woman who was charged with stowaway after she was suspected of boarding a trip from New York to Paris last month without a ticket was detained in New York close to the Canadian border after severing her ankle band.
A senior official briefed on the situation told NBC News that Svetlana Dali was apprehended close to Buffalo. The official stated that the woman, who is accused of cutting off her ankle monitor while she was in the vicinity of Philadelphia with her boyfriend, traveled to Buffalo by Greyhound bus.
After being accused of smuggling onto a Delta flight from New York City to Paris last month, Dali was charged with stowaway and arraigned in federal court this month.
The federal court had mandated that a GPS ankle band track her travels.
According to a second official, Dali was detained by the FBI after being halted by Canadian officials while attempting to cross the border. According to the second official, she severed her ankle band on Sunday.
According to a Western District court spokesperson, she is anticipated to be turned over to federal officials in the Eastern District of New York after a planned court appearance on Tuesday.
On Monday, an FBI representative declined to comment.
Requests for comment on Monday were not immediately answered by Dali’s stowaway lawyer.
According to the FBI in a federal complaint, officials claim that Dali boarded Delta Flight 264 from John F. Kennedy International Airport on November 26 amid the Thanksgiving traffic rush on his way to Charles de Gaulle Airport.
According to a Transportation Security Administration official, she evaded two security and ticketing checkpoints before boarding. According to the spokeswoman, she passed a thorough security check before boarding, indicating that she was not a security risk and had no banned items.
According to the lawsuit, Dali attempted to proceed through the screening line but was denied entry by a TSA officer when she did not present her boarding pass. According to the complaint, she managed to join the security line five minutes later by using a designated lane for airline employees.
According to the lawsuit, she was neither stopped or asked to provide a boarding pass by Delta employees who were occupied assisting ticketed passengers in boarding.
Employees at Delta discovered that Dali wasn’t meant to be on the trip. She was unable to produce her boarding pass when they inquired for it, so they alerted French authorities.
According to the FBI complaint, she was arrested by French police upon the flight’s landing. According to a spokesman for France’s border police, she was refused entry because she lacked a valid visa or travel document.
Dali confessed taking the flight without a boarding permit and that her acts were unlawful when she was interviewed by the FBI, according to the complaint.
Dali can be fined, imprisoned for up to five years, or both if found guilty.
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