A Tauranga teenager held in a Thai prison since his arrest last week over an alleged theft has had his bail release approved, his mother says.
Loukas Rainger, 18, was accused of stealing a woman’s watch during a security bag check at an airport, his mother and his lawyer earlier told Stuff.
Loukas had spent a month travelling around Thailand with his best friend and was preparing to fly home to New Zealand when he was stopped by immigration officials at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok on Thursday, July 16, according to his mother, Natasha Rainger.
“He was told by immigration that there was a warrant out for his arrest,” Natasha told Stuff, over an incident two weeks prior at another Thai airport, in Surat Thani, where he had picked up a woman’s watch at a security check and put it in his pocket.
“That watch… he told me it was on the airport tray with his belongings… so he just picked it up too,” she said. “He’s inexperienced, young. He’d been on a long boat trip just right before, and had been really sick. He should have left it, or handed it in, but that doesn’t deserve years in a Thai prison.”