A 27-year-old Australian citizen was taken off a flight to Brisbane at Ngurah Rai airport. Four days earlier, a security camera had recorded him and his female companion behaving indecently in the yard of a residential house in Berawa. The footage spread on Instagram, and police began looking for both of them. Immigration identified the man and flagged him in its system — and that flag came up when he went through the checkpoint before his departure.
It happened on August 21 at around half past six in the evening. Two foreigners, a man and a woman, walked into the yard of a house on Jalan Pantai Berawa and stopped right by the gate. One of the household members came out to place offerings, saw them and called out to them; they ignored the shout and left on foot about fifteen minutes later. The owner of the house ran into them at the end of the lane as he was heading back home.
On August 23, police came to the scene, collected the camera footage and, together with the immigration service, began working to identify the pair. The man was identified first — in the reports he appears under the initials BA.
His details were found in the immigration information system, and he was placed on a watch list: when someone on that list goes through passport control, an alert pops up for the officer. On August 25, at around midday, the system was triggered at the international departures terminal — BA was at the immigration check ahead of his flight to Brisbane. He was taken to a screening room and handed over to police.
During his first questioning, BA admitted what had happened. He said he had met the woman at one of the beach clubs nearby and that they had left there drunk. Police are still working to identify the foreign woman.
Police cited two charges at once: indecency in a public place, and a more serious one for distributing pornography. Which one will stand will be decided once the investigation is complete. For indecency, the criminal code that has been in force in Indonesia since January 2026 provides for up to a year in prison or a fine of up to 10 million rupiah, about $560.
The pornography charge is harsher: from six months to ten years, or a fine of 200 million to 2 billion rupiah, that is roughly 11 to 112 thousand dollars. The code does specify, however, that recording for one's own use does not fall under it.
The owners of the house told police that no damage had been done to them, but that they consider the yard defiled after the incident and have held a Balinese purification ceremony there.
There have been similar cases on the island before: in January, police searched for a foreigner who undressed in public in Ubud. That search also started with screenshots that circulated on Balinese social media.
Jalan Pantai Berawa has been patrolled since June: on Saturdays, police post night patrols here and on neighboring Batu Bolong. Minimarkets, ATMs and dark access roads to villa complexes have also come under watch.
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