Northeast Philly woman who claimed she was sold as a ‘slave’ is behind an international stowaway incident

What was a Russian national from Northeast Philadelphia doing on a Paris-bound airliner without a ticket, hiding in bathrooms to avoid detection?

French and U.S. authorities are attempting to figure that out.

Svetlana Dali, 57, made international headlines Thursday as details emerged from her daring stowaway excursion on a Delta Airlines flight last week — one that carried her across the Atlantic Ocean before law enforcement could arrest her in the French capital.

The case brought intrigue to what was otherwise a routine flight departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

News outlets reported that Dali bounced between bathrooms throughout the flight, spending long periods inside as she sought — unsuccessfully — to avoid the suspicions of the flight crew, whose captain only alerted passengers to the situation once the plane had touched down and police were on their way.

Dali was not authorized to enter France and was ordered to return to the United States, according to a CNN report. FBI agents apprehended Dali in New York on Wednesday; she was appeared in federal court in the state on Thursday.

Details made public about her life in Philadelphia raise more questions than answers.

Dali’s last known address was in the city’s Rhawnhurst neighborhood, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Pennsylvania.

That case was brought by Dali herself — less than a week before her fateful Nov. 26 flight.

In the complaint, Dali alleged that she was sold as a “slave” to her ex-husband, Mahdi Dali, in 2014 for $20,000 by the minister of the Russian Federation.

Svetlana Dali also alleged that she never received an expected green card from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and that she was “poisoned after court” by “some military.” The filing names Mahdi Dali as well as the FBI, “General Prosecutor of Philadelphia,” and the state police as defendants.

“I have not a Civil Right for any countries,” Dali wrote in the handwritten document.

Mahdi Dali, who also lives in the Philadelphia region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though he strongly rebutted those allegations in a DailyMail report Thursday.

Mahdi Dali described his former partner as a “fantasist” who had allegedly used his citizenship to obtain her green card.

He told the DailyMail that Svetlana Dali was “calculating and delusional,” that the two met on an online dating site while she was living in Moscow, and that his ex was a real estate lawyer. They wed in the Russian capital before returning to the States, where the marriage soon took a downward turn.

‘I was scammed,” Dali told the outlet of what he described as a three-year relationship. “All she wanted was to live in America, and I was naive enough to fall for it.”

Perhaps more perplexing are questions over how Svetlana Dali evaded airline security to board the flight; news reports say Dali evaded both TSA and other security checks to get on the plane.

Dali faces stowaway charges in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, which come with a maximum penalty of five years in prison. She was temporarily detained until 2 p.m. Friday until attorneys could come up with a bail package, according to New York’s Inner City Press.