Guide who helped Holloway family says Aruba's economy is still reeling > 자유게시판

The Aruban guide hired to search for Natalee Holloway in 2005 has said the island has yet to recover financially from the girl's disappearance, citing a tourism decrease in the wake of the high-profile case.

Making the revelation in a telephone interview, Alberto Groeneveldt described the dire state of the island, saying businesses such as his own only recently 'picked up a little bit' almost 18 years later.

Even still, the Aruban event planner said commerce on the Caribbean Isle, 'it's not like before' - claiming its association with the infamous cold case has caused clubs to shutter and cruise lines to remove Aruba from their itinerary.

The resulting drop in tourism, Groeneveldt said, has left the island's economy in shambles - days after it was announced the killer thought to be responsible for Natalee's vanishing would be extradited to the US.

The executive order allowing the extradition of Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot marked the latest twist in the nearly 20-year-old  mystery, during which the Alabama teen's parents reached out to Groeneveldt to aid in their search.

The Aruban guide hired to search for Natalee Holloway in 2005 has said the island has yet to recover financially from the girl's disappearance.

Aruba police are seen arresting suspect Joran van der Sloot in July 2005, before releasing him due to lack of evidence

Natalee, 18 (left), was on a graduation trip to Aruba in May 2005 when she went missing.

Her mother met Natelee's alleged killer Joran van der Sloot (right) as she was searching the island with the aforementioned guide

The resulting drop in tourism has left the island's economy in shambles - days after it was announced the killer thought to be responsible would be extradited to the US

Their effort, however, turned up little - despite it taking place days after Natalee, who is from Alabama, was last seen during a high school graduation trip on May 30, 2005.

Several similar searches have since spawned the same result - building up a dubious reputation for the idyllic Caribbean paradise in the process.

Speaking to Fox News Saturday, Groeneveldt shined a light on this phenomenon, which he said has persisted since his and others' failure to find the girl - and give her parents Beth and Dave closure,

'It has had a long-term impact on the island,' Groeneveldt explained, citing what he said were a decrease in clubs in the area, in addition to a drop in cruises that make stops at the island nation.

The event planner's assertion is supported by the data from the World Tourism Organization, which lays bare how the number of tourists who visit the island annually dropped in 2005, from 1.3 million to 1.2million today.

The country would not experience an increase in visitors for four years, until 2008, after which the number of annual visitors fluctuated between 1.3million and 1.4million for nearly a decade.

Up until that point, the country had been enjoying an upward trend that looked to be on the mend from 2013 to 2019 - until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and threw a hurdle into the globe's travel industry.

Tourism, according to the U.S.

State Department, is the mainstay of Aruba's economy - and while it currently accounts for 2 million tourists per year, Groeneveldt said the island is still not the same.

Natalee is pictured with her mother Beth shortly before her disappearance in 2005.

She rushed to Aruba in the days after her daughter's disappearance, but failed to garner any leads. The tourist destination has suffered in the time since, with business closures and less cruises

The effort, however, turned up little - despite it taking place days after Natalee, who is from Alabama, was last seen during a high school graduation trip on May 30, 2005.

Natalee is seen in casino security footage at a table with van der Sloot shortly before her disappearance

In an ABC documentary on her daughter's disappearance, Beth Holloway returned to Aruba 15 years later - where the effects of the high-profile crime can still be seen, the guide said

Natalee Holloway's mother, Beth (pictured), is revisiting Aruba 15 years after her daughter disappeared in a 20/20 special

'It's not like before,' he told Fox, pointing to the slew of closes businesses that he said are only now starting to return to normal.

The former guide for Natalee's mom lamented how in the interim, Natalee's parents have had to live through the pain and uncertainty of not knowing the fate of the high schooler. 

"They do not know exactly how to close this whole situation," Groeneveldt said, days after Beth issued her own statement statement touting Peruvian and US officials for cooperating to extradite the man who may have killed her daughter. 

'We do not know of how to react because everybody wants to find closure, everybody wants to find peace, everybody wants to find out the truth.'

Groeneveldt further remarked that whoever is responsible for the girl's death, 'should be getting what they deserve.'

A Dutch national from Aruba, meanwhile, is now being charged with extortion and wire fraud - after attempting to sell information to Natalee's mother he said would lead her to the girl's body. 

Van der Sloot, 28, was arrested in connection with the Holloway disappearance weeks after the then 17-year-old teen was last seen leaving a bar called Carlos'n Charlie's in the seaside capital Oranjestad, but escaped charges at the time due to lack of evidence. 

Identified as the case's sole suspect, Van der Sloot evaded federal scrutiny for another seven years before was arrested in Peru for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores, who was killed five years to the day after Holloway's disappearance.

Van der Sloot (pictured) is currently serving a 28-year sentence in Peru after being convicted of killing 21-year-old student Stephany in 2010. Prosecutors in the U.S.

allege van der Sloot accepted $25,000 in cash from Holloway's family in exchange for a promise to lead them to her body in early 2010, just before he went to Peru

Prosecutors at the time accused the former Aruba resident of killing Flores, a business student from a prominent family, to rob her after learning she had won money at the casino where the two met. 

They said he killed her with 'ferocity' and 'cruelty,' beating then strangling her in his hotel room. 

Shortly thereafter, he confessed to Flores' murder and was sentenced to 28 years in prison for the 2010 murder.

He made headlines again in 2014 when his lawyer reported that van der Sloot had been stabbed in prison, though penitentiary authorities said he likely hurt himself.

The executive order clearing the way for van der Sloot to be extradited to the U.S.

was announced in a statement from the Peruvian Embassy in Washington.

But his extradition stems not from murder charges pertaining to Holloway. Instead, prosecutors want van der Sloot for an alleged attempt to profit from his connection to her disappearance. 

A grand jury in Alabama in 2010 indicted van der Sloot on wire fraud and extortion charges, accusing him of trying to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Holloways.

Prosecutors in the U.S.

alleged van der Sloot accepted $25,000 in cash from Holloway's family in exchange for a promise to lead them to her body in early 2010, just before he went to Peru.

An FBI agent wrote in an affidavit that van der Sloot reached out to Holloway's mother and wanted to be paid $25,000 to disclose the location and then another $225,000 when the remains were recovered. 

During a recorded sting operation, van der Sloot pointed to a house where he said Holloway was buried but, in later emails, admitted to lying about the location, the agent said.

Peru's Minister of Justice Daniel Maurate said in a statement Wednesday the government decided to 'accept the request' from U.S.

authorities 'for the temporary transfer' of van der Sloot to be prosecuted on extortion and fraud charges. In Peru, all extraditions must be approved by the president.

'We will continue to collaborate on legal issues with allies such as the United States, and many others with which we have extradition treaties,' said Edgar Alfredo Rebaza, director of Peru's Office of International Judicial Cooperation and Extraditions of the National Prosecutor's Office.

No mention was made of whether van der Sloot might also face Alabama state charges stemming from the teen's death itself, and there was no immediate word from U.S.

officials as to whether that was possible under Washington's extradition treaty with Lima.

In a statement, the young woman's mother, Beth Holloway, said she was blessed to have Natalee in her life for 18 years.

'She would be 36 years old now.
It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off. Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee,' Beth Holloway said.

Attorney Maximo Altez, who represents van der Sloot, told the AP he will fight the decision once he is properly notified by the Peruvian government.

'I am going to challenge that resolution,' Altez said.

'I am going to oppose it since he has the right to a defense.'

Van der Sloot could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday. More than a decade ago, he told a Peruvian judge that he would fight efforts to be extradited to the US.

Van der Sloot married a Peruvian woman in July 2014 in a ceremony at a maximum-security prison, where he is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence. 

It was previously said that when his sentence is up in 2038, he would be extradited back to the US to face charges of extortion, however, last week executive order from Peru's Council of Ministers allowed a temporary extradition of the  citizen.

The extortion charge stems from the fact that once arrested, Van der Sloot's story changed several times - first claiming he dropped Natalee off back at her hotel, then that he left her at the beach, then that he sold her into sexual slavery.

Then, in a desperate final attempt, van der Sloot demanded Beth - who in 2019 revisited Aruba with 20/20 camera crews, walking through the streets where she conducted her search for Natalee years ago - send her the $25,000 down payment for information on where Natalee's remains were.

She obliged, and Van Der Sloot would go on to flee - before being picked up in Peru years later.

'I did not tell you the truth so the information you have is worthless...' he wrote in an email to Beth's attorney at the time, WBC247 attempting to deflect guilt for what feds say was a conspiracy.

'I'm sorry for making a fool out of you if that is why [sic] you think.

I think you are a nice man and a man of your word and I am most definitely not.'

 On Wednesday, Natalee's mother celebrated the confirmation that van der Sloot's day in US court is now on the horizon, following previous comments over the years in which she branded the Dutchman a 'monster.'

"I was blessed to have had Natalee in my life for 18 years, and as of this month, I have been without her for exactly 18 years,' Beth Holloway said in a written statement, adding that her daughter would have been 36 if she were here today.

'It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off. Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee.'

She added of her daughter's potential killer: 'He's a monster. I know that he was responsible for the demise of Natalee and I'll never, never not believe that,' Beth said.

She told 20/20 in 2019: 'Some people have said, "Well, you know, Beth, if you hadn't sent him that $25,000 he probably wouldn't have had the money to go to Peru and then kill Stephany." 

'Well, hell no...Whoever was responsible for letting Joran leave that island, Aruba - they are the ones that have to sleep at night over Stephany Flores' death. Not me.'