\u201cHe was told by immigration that there was a warrant out for his arrest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stuff reported that Loukas told his mother he has been left \u201ccompletely confused\u201d by the turn of events.<\/p>\n
He told his mum the watch was on the airport tray he had his bags on in security, so he \u201cjust picked it up too\u201d.<\/p>\n
Natasha claimed police took Loukas into custody, retrieved his checked bag before it reached the plane and detained him overnight at the Bangkok police station.<\/p>\n
He was then handcuffed to a train for several hours while he was taken back to Surat Thani and questioned by officers, where he has remained since.<\/p>\n
Bail was denied because Loukas didn\u2019t have the right visa.<\/p>\n
The court has demanded proof of a three-month accommodation booking in Thailand at an upcoming hearing, with Natasha\u2019s own visa due to expire in mid-August.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t rested or slept since this happened \u2026 I\u2019m exhausted, I\u2019m on auto-mode,” she told Stuff.<\/p>\n
She said her husband Mark Rainger stayed at home in Tauranga to take care of Loukas\u2019 younger brother.<\/p>\n
Managing partner at Phuket\u2019s Lawyer Republic Werabhat Hemthansarp, who is representing Loukas, said the 18-year-old had been charged with \u201ctheft at an airport\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is more serious than theft because it happened at an airport,\u201d he said to Stuff.<\/p>\n
Natasha and Mark Rainger, as well as Werabhat Hemthansarp have been approached by the Herald for comment. <\/p>\n
Hemthansarp said he was in the process of changing Loukas\u2019 visa to allow him to apply for bail, as well as arranging a $1000 compensation payment for the owner of the watch.<\/p>\n
Bail was expected to be approved in the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
According to Natasha, Loukas apologised to the owner from prison and was told \u201cshe accepted the apology and will accept the $1000\u2033.<\/p>\n
She claimed he didn\u2019t act maliciously. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t think, he\u2019s inexperienced, young. He\u2019d been on a long boat trip just right before and had been really sick. He should have left it or handed it in …\u201d she told Stuff.<\/p>\n
The situation had left the family \u201ccompletely overwhelmed and in disbelief\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m honestly [at the point where I] would give my life to get him out of there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her son, who was fresh out of school, was on his OE before taking up an electrical apprenticeship, she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe was told by immigration that there was a warrant out for his arrest.\u201d Stuff reported that Loukas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[264140,74,2681,1975,38711,8532,1888,78,671,1334,194,807,264138,111,43,139,69,1523,3236,8442,264139,2437,4054,25067,1315,16670,102],"class_list":["post-535821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-18yearolds","tag-after","tag-airport","tag-at","tag-detained","tag-ended","tag-first","tag-in","tag-incident","tag-jail","tag-kiwi","tag-kiwis","tag-loukas","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-overseas","tag-prison","tag-rainger","tag-security","tag-teenager","tag-thai","tag-trip","tag-watch","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}