New Video Shows Joran van der Sloot Boasting He Profited From Natalee Holloway Case, Criticizes FBI Sting

A newly released recording has renewed scrutiny of how investigators handled the long-running Natalee Holloway disappearance. In a Sept. 9 post on her Substack, journalist Greta van Susteren said she possesses what she described as the full FBI video tied to a 2010 sting operation involving Joran van der Sloot and suggested the footage raises questions about the handling of the case.

Van der Sloot is heard on the tape saying, "I have the entire FBI video of their failed sting operation on May 10, 2010 — Joran slipped them after getting $25,000 and killed again. Incredible that the FBI could be this incompetent." The remarks were recorded five years after 18-year-old Natalee Holloway vanished while on a high school trip to Aruba; van der Sloot, then 17, was last seen with Holloway and was a student at the International School of Aruba.

Extortion Negotiations and FBI Monitoring

Court documents and reporting from outlets including In Touch and People show that in March 2010 van der Sloot offered to disclose Holloway's location in exchange for $250,000. In May 2010 the FBI monitored a meeting in which an initial $25,000 payment was discussed. Attorney John Q. Kelly, who worked with Natalee’s mother Beth Holloway, has said the family hoped the payment would help secure van der Sloot’s arrest on extortion charges and potential extradition to the U.S.

Kelly told People: "We never thought he would tell the truth or cooperate. The point was to get him on the extortion counts."

What van der Sloot Admitted On Tape

On the recording shared by van Susteren, van der Sloot explains he tried to monetize the case. He admits failing a polygraph administered in 2010 as part of a Dutch TV project, and describes offering information in stages in order to collect payments. He also told Kelly that a friend advised waiting five years for a statute-of-limitations defense.

After the meeting, van der Sloot led Kelly to a site at the Aruba Racquet Club and said Holloway’s remains had been buried in lots under construction. He later emailed Kelly, "I did not tell you the truth so the information you have is worthless," according to People.

Interpol Perú/Mega / MEGA

Subsequent Crimes and Legal Developments

Kelly has said van der Sloot left Aruba, used the $25,000 to travel, and later murdered 21-year-old Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru, on May 30, 2010—exactly five years after Holloway disappeared. Van der Sloot was convicted in Peru in 2012 and sentenced to 28 years for Flores’ murder.

In 2023 van der Sloot pleaded guilty to U.S. extortion and wire fraud charges and, as part of that agreement, admitted for the first time that he killed Holloway. He acknowledged bludgeoning her with a cinder block after she rejected his advances and dumping her body in the Caribbean Sea, according to CNN. The U.S. sentenced him to 20 years to run concurrently with his Peruvian sentence.

Jurisdictional Limits And The FBI Response

A joint 2010 statement from the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Birmingham, Alabama, explained why charges were not brought earlier, saying the investigation "was not sufficiently developed to bring charges prior to the time van der Sloot left Aruba." The agencies added that building a criminal case from events that took place outside the United States is complex and that agents and prosecutors were working as quickly as possible to prepare evidence and procedures to obtain custody.

Van der Sloot has never been charged in Aruba for Holloway’s death. As CNN and other outlets note, Aruba’s 12-year statute of limitations for homicide has elapsed, and the United States lacks jurisdiction over crimes committed there.

Sources

This article is based on reporting from Greta van Susteren's Substack, People, In Touch, CNN and public statements from the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office.