
American teen runaway to leave Netherlands voluntarily
American teenager Maggie Lee will leave the Netherlands and return home with her mother voluntarily, the Dutch Public Prosecutor and family spokesperson Ronald Donders said to newspaper AD. The 16-year-old girl was arrested on Saturday for identity theft - she traveled to the Netherlands with her sister's passport - and will be released later this afternoon, according to the newspaper.
Maggie Lee made headlines in the Netherlands when her mother reported that she was missing since April 1st. She met a boy from The Hague online and came to the Netherlands to see him, according to the mother. Her parents worried that she had been lured into some kind of trap. But it eventually turned out that she came to the Netherlands voluntarily to see friends she met online and spent the past month couch surfing. Maggie used her sister's passport to travel, because her own was taken away after a previous attempt to travel to the Netherlands.
The Dutch authorities will continue to investigate the identity theft case against the American girl, but she does not have to stay in the Netherlands until the investigation is concluded, according to the newspaper. She will return to the United States in the coming days. Until then she will be under the supervision of the Child Protection Council.
There is also a chance that the girl will be arrested in the United States for identity theft, according to the spokesperson for the family. "She will probably be questioned, she upset a lot of security sisters by traveling with her sisters passport", Ronald Donders said.