Van der Sloot Admits to Extortion Plot

Joran van der Sloot has confessed to extorting money from Natalee Holloway’s parents, according to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. Van der Sloot reportedly took money from Holloway’s family in return for revealing the location of missing American Natalee Holloway’s body, which turned out to be a sham. “I wanted to get back at Natalee's family—her parents have been making my life tough for five years,” van der Sloot told the paper from prison in Peru. “When they offered to pay for the girl's location, I thought: ‘Why not?’” Van der Sloot, long considered the prime suspect in Holloway’s 2005 disappearance in Aruba, was indicted in June in the U.S. for the extortion plot, and is currently being held in Peru for the gruesome murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores. Natalee’s mother sent $10,000 in cash to van der Sloot through an FBI witness, and then wire transferred $15,000 to his account in the Netherlands, which he used to fund his trip to Latin America where he reportedly killed Flores. Prosecutors still say there is not enough evidence to charge van der Sloot with Holloway’s murder.