If airports are fortresses of glass and steel, Svetlana Dali seems determined to treat them like revolving doors.
The woman convicted in 2025 for stowing away on an international flight to Paris without a passport or ticket has reportedly been arrested again — this time at Milan’s Malpensa Airport. According to an official who spoke to The Associated Press, Dali was taken into custody Thursday after allegedly sneaking onto a flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Milan.
Yes, again.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed the agency’s Newark office is “aware of the alleged stowaway” and said it is working with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Transportation Security Administration on what they described as an open investigation. United Airlines, which operated the Newark-to-Milan flight, said it is investigating the incident and cooperating with authorities.
Dali’s federal defender, Michael K. Schneider, declined to comment on the latest arrest. He also declined to say whether Dali had completed the mental health evaluation required under the terms of her supervised release. “I can’t comment on what she’s done since her release,” Schneider said, noting that her appeal of the prior conviction is still pending.
The alleged Milan escapade comes less than a year after Dali was sentenced to time served and placed on one year of supervised release for her previous sky-high stunt. In May 2025, she was convicted of slipping past security and airline gate agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport and boarding a Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Paris without a boarding pass.
Surveillance video showed Dali, a Russian citizen with U.S. residency, blending in with ticketed passengers and walking past airline staff unnoticed. Prosecutors said she hid in a bathroom for several hours and wasn’t discovered until the plane was nearing Paris.
When she was flown back to New York, court documents say she told an FBI agent she had to leave the U.S. because she believed people were poisoning her.
As part of her supervised release, Dali was barred from leaving the federal judicial district where she was authorized to reside without permission from the court or her probation officer. She was also ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and participate in treatment if necessary.
But prosecutors have long suggested the Paris incident wasn’t her first airport disappearing act.
Two days before the JFK flight, authorities say she slipped through TSA checkpoints at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut by hiding among other passengers. She allegedly tried and failed to board a plane before leaving the airport.
And in February 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents discovered her hiding in a bathroom at Miami International Airport. Although agents couldn’t confirm she had illegally arrived as a stowaway, prosecutors said her later statements appeared to indicate she may have flown into Miami without authorization.
Now, with another alleged international flight under her belt, Dali’s story raises uneasy questions about airport security — and about what drives someone to repeatedly gamble with the skies.
