TOKYO (TR) – Actress Miho Owada was left in tears after security personnel at an airport in Thailand warned she would be blocked from departing for Japan due to a prohibited mobile battery in her luggage, the entertainer revealed on social media.
Owada, 43, posted on her Instagram account on Friday to recount the ordeal, which took place as she was returning from visiting her eldest daughter, who is currently studying abroad at a boarding school in Thailand.
According to Owada, the trouble began during baggage screening when screeners discovered a power bank mistakenly packed inside her suitcase.
Security screeners allegedly told her, “You can’t go back to Japan” and “You cannot leave Thailand,” claiming strict new rules had gone into effect in October.
The warnings sparked panic for the actress. “Something unbelievable happened during outbound immigration in Thailand,” Owada wrote. “I managed to depart while fighting back tears, and it left me completely exhausted.”
Owada was eventually permitted to proceed after surrendering the battery, though she suspected the officers may have either botched the translation or intentionally harassed her.
“In the end, they just meant I had to leave the mobile battery behind. But at the end they were laughing, even though I had told them multiple times that they could just throw it away,” Owada said. “Whether it was a language error or they were teasing me, hearing ‘You can’t go back to Japan’ really terrified me.”
Owada, who regularly visits Bangkok on weekends to see her daughter, reassured fans that she had arrived safely back in Japan and planned to share a detailed account of the ordeal on her YouTube channel.
