Russian man who flew to US found guilty of being a stowaway, because…
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New York: A United States federal court has found a Russian man guilty of flying to the country as a stowaway without visa, passport or ticket, according to BBC.
Sergey Ochigava, 46, convicted in a California court on Friday, landed at Los Angeles International Airport on November 4, 2023.
This Russian-Israeli dual national left Copenhagen on a Scandinavian Airlines flight without any travel documents and has been in custody since November.
Sergey Ochigava , who is to be handed the sentence on February 5, is facing a maximum of five years in federal prison.
Investigators accused him of giving ‘false and misleading’ information about his arrival in the US, including claiming to have left his passport on the plane.
The flight crew reportedly said that Ochigava wandered around the plane, and frequently changed his seat, alongside asking for two meals, and tried to eat the chocolate of the cabin crew.
During the search, officials found Russian and Isreali identification cards but no passport, according to the report.
‘Ochigava had a Ph. D in economics and marketing. He last worked as an economist in Russia a long time ago. He claimed he had not been sleeping for three days and did not understand what was going on. Ochigava stated he might have had a plane ticket to come to the United States, but he was not sure,’ FBI Agent Caroline Walling reportedly wrote.
Caroline Walling further added that ‘He did not remember how he got on the plane in Copenhagen. He also would not explain how or when he got to Copenhagen or what he was doing there. When asked how he got through security in Copenhagen, Ochigava claimed he did not remember how he went through security without a ticket.’
